White Roses Part 1: Four Strangers on a Street Corner
by Elizabeth Joan-hbndgirl
Summary: A mob shooting and a missing persons case intersect for NYPD detective Fenton Hardy. Before long, he realizes that this is anything but business as usual when his family becomes involved - and irrevocably affected.
1. An Unlikely Clue

J.M.J.

_Author's note: Welcome! Thanks for reading this fanfiction! I hope you enjoy it!_

_Before we get started, there're a couple of things I want to note, especially if you've ever read any of my other fanfics. First off, I have changed my username. I was hbndgirl for several years, which was never a username I was particularly fond of. So, in the interests of giving you all a real name to associate with me, I've put Lizzy in front of it. Lizzy is a variation of middle name rather than my first name and very few people in real life call me that, but you can all call me by it, if you like._

_Second, there's a bit of a story behind this story. Some of you may have read my earlier series, the Chapters Series. You remember, that overly long, overly convoluted, overly disjointed series full of unlikely plot twists and convenient escapes and practically impossible scenarios? Yep, it's pretty much full of flaws, and I'm painfully aware of it. Yet, in spite of that, it's a series I've always felt had potential, that I've always wanted to be a great series. I've thought quite a bit the last year about rewriting it, and have been working on that off and on. Finally, I decided to just take the plunge and do it. So, that's what this is at the baseline: a rewrite of the Chapters Series. However, it's not like I'm taking each individual book from that series and rewriting it. It's more like I'm taking the overall idea of the series and making it into a new series. So, most of the major plot points of the overarching story are still here. Most of the OCs are back. The individual storylines of each story are completely different, because that's sometimes what happens when you're rewriting. Because of that, I am absolutely leaving the original Chapters Series up and you can read it if you want. The biggest change in this rewrite that needs to be addressed right now is that the original one has Nancy Drew in it. This one does not. The original series was fighting me the entire time, because it wanted to focus completely on the Hardys, but I wanted to force it to spare a little time for Nancy. This time, I'm not trying to fight it, which is a little sad since I'm a pretty big Nancy fan, but it also means I'll have more time to focus on some of the more neglected characters from the Hardy Boys, like Laura and Aunt Gertrude and Tony and Phil. I've got plans for all of them, and I think you'll like them._

_Third, this is kind of a pet project for me. I'm working some original books, and I need to devote most of my writing time to them, so until further notice, I'll only be posting one chapter a week on Fridays. I'll probably once in a while give you guys an extra chapter in a week's time, but I don't want to bog myself down too much by promising multiple chapters a week, because this is going to be a BIG project, considering I've got plans for at least six books in it. I also may very well post other fanfics in between chapters of this series, just because sometimes I need to work on something else for a little break and I don't always feel like working on my original books._

_Fourth, this series might be a little uncomfortable for some people to read. There will be a lot of violence in it, as well as quite a few religious/philosophical discussions amongst characters. It all is important to the storyline, I promise, but I realize it can be uncomfortable, so don't feel obliged to continue reading if you don't want to. At the same time, please keep any and all reviews respectful to other readers and myself and just generally non-nasty. Just to clarify, if you want to criticize my writing, absolutely go for it, but if you disagree with what I say (rather than just how I say it), please be respectful about it._

_Fifth, and finally, this story is a little bit of a strange jumping off place, maybe. You see, Fenton and Laura are the main characters here. It takes place while Fenton is still a detective for the NYPD and Frank and Joe are three and two, respectively. It will give a lot of important background, though, and give me a chance to really work with Fenton and Laura's characters, which should be a lot of fun. As for when, specifically, it takes place, it's a little hard to say, but I'm going to just go with 1998._

_I think that's probably it for this overly long author's note. So, with that, I present to you the first book of this new series:_

_**White Roses**_

_**Part 1**_

_**Four Strangers on a Street Corner**_

**Chapter I**

**An Unlikely Clue**

The clock above the front desk at that particular precinct of the New York City Police Department was ticking so loudly that it seemed to permeate Lieutenant Fenton Hardy's brain until the only thing more coherent than "tick-tock, tick-tock" that he could think was to wonder why a battery-powered clock even needed to tick. The young detective rested his elbows on the desk and buried his face in his hands. This was what came of seventeen straight hours on duty.

"Shouldn't you either be working or be at home?" Nicholson asked. He had graduated from Police Academy recently and had been put on duty at the front desk tonight. The thought entered Fenton's sleep-deprived brain that Nicholson was probably finding working the front desk at three o'clock in the morning to be much less exciting than he had expected police work to be.

"Tell that to Moretti and his boys," Fenton replied with a grimace.

"Inconsiderate bunch, aren't they?" Nicholson had a teasing grin on his face as he said it. "On a Sunday, too. The least they could do was wait for a weekday to blow each other up."

Fenton frowned. He knew that many officers used gallows humor to cope with the suffering they saw daily, but Nicholson was too new for that sort of thing. Besides that, he had been parked safely behind this desk and hadn't seen that parking lot that had been used as a battlefield. "There wasn't anything funny about the shape of that parking lot, officer."

Nicholson immediately wiped the grin off his face. "Of course not, Lieutenant. I didn't mean any disrespect. It is strange, though, that it happened on a Sunday morning. I thought these people believed in going to church."

Fenton shook his head, more out of disbelief than disagreement. "They might go to church, but they certainly don't listen to anything that's said there. It's disgusting, really. Sorry. I know I'm supposed to be impartial."

Nicholson shrugged. "Since when was it partiality to state a fact? Butchering each other in the streets over who gets the rights to make a fortune selling drugs is pretty much the definition of disgusting, if you ask me. Speaking of which, have you figured out who the other guys involved in the fight were?"

"Nobody seems to recognize them." Fenton sighed. "Johnson and I have been working basically this whole time to identify them, but no luck so far. We didn't think it would be too hard, considering they appear to be a part of a group that uses a particular tattoo to identify themselves, but no one knows what group it is or at least no one will talk about it. Forensics are working to get us a clear picture of what their faces must have looked like."

Any humor in Nicholson's face was immediately replaced with disgust as his face paled and his lips parted slightly while he registered just what this information meant. He swallowed hard and then tried to change the subject by saying, "Speaking of Johnson, where is he?"

"Asleep. He barely hit the break room and he was out. It's just as well. I figure sleeping through this break is probably as good a use of the time as anything." Fenton sighed again and shook his head. "I know after seven years on the force, I should be used to seeing things like this, but this one's really getting to me."

"I don't see why it should," Nicholson said, recovering a little and trying to cover up the fact that this one detail about the crime scene had made his stomach churn. "I mean, sure, eight bodies killed by machine guns littering up a parking lot would be pretty nasty, but these guys had it coming. Five of them are part of the Moretti Family and the other three are hoods of some sort, maybe even worse."

"That's the problem. We know about Moretti, but we can't stop him, and the same goes for all the other crime families in this city. Now we have these new guys, and we don't even have a clue who they are. And they're not always just killing each other. It would be bad enough if they were, but as often as not, ordinary citizens get caught up in these things. I keep thinking about my two boys. What kind of a place is this for them to grow up in? You know, I grew up in a small town. I want that for my boys."

Nicholson scoffed. "You'd give up being a lieutenant, and no doubt eventually promoted even higher, in the NYPD to be some small town cop?"

"For my boys and Laura, I would," Fenton said without hesitation.

Nicholson shook his head and looked down at his work. He clearly couldn't see how taking such a demotion could possibly be beneficial to a man's wife and kids.

Fenton took a sip of his coffee, one of the first he had had out of this cup. It was already cold, but he kept drinking it anyway. After so many hours without sleep, coffee of any temperature was practically a necessity. He allowed his mind the luxury of drifting back to his old hometown, a place called Northrop, Maine. His father had been a police officer on the small force there, while his mother had stayed at home and taken care of Fenton and his sister, Gertrude, filling what little free time she had with volunteer work and a few clubs. It had been a good place to grow up. Fenton and Gertrude had both had plenty of friends and had spent so many long, lazy summer days of childhood exploring every nook and cranny of that little town. Then, in high school, there had been Friday nights at the movie theater, ice skating on the frozen river in the wintertime, long drives through the countryside, and any number of other activities that would have practically been impossible if he had grown up in the city.

He thought of his sons, Frank and Joe. Frank was only three, and Joe had just turned two a couple weeks ago. They deserved to grow up in a town like Northrop, where they could be safe to hang out with friends or explore the town. The problem was that it would be a sacrifice to go back to a place like that. Fenton would have to take a major cut in pay, and there wouldn't be many options for Laura to take on a job, if she even wanted to. She made it clear that taking care of her sons was her highest priority, and she didn't want to hand that over to strangers at some daycare. Besides that, she and Fenton had made friends here in New York. It would be hard leaving them behind. Still…it was worth talking over again. Maybe they could find a way to make it work.

Fenton was stirred from his daydream by the doors to the precinct opening. Nicholson, too, looked up. It wasn't unusual for someone to come in at three in the morning – police precincts in the city were never really "dead" – but both men were a little surprised at the sort of person who was coming in. It was a little boy, probably no more than six or seven years old. His dark hair and eyes and darkish complexion told the officers that he was probably of Italian descent, which was a fact that stood out to both of them, considering what had taken place earlier that day, or rather the day before.

"What can I do for you?" Nicholson asked him in a friendly tone. "Isn't it awfully late for you to be wandering around on your own?"

"I guess," the boy admitted. He seemed a little scared as he stood in front of the door with wide eyes and feet that were hesitant to come forward.

"What's your name?" Nicholson asked when the boy didn't offer any other information. "My name is Paul Nicholson, and this is Lieutenant Hardy."

"You can call me Fenton, though," Fenton quickly interjected.

"Mario," the boy said.

Nicholson waited a little to give the boy a chance to supply his last name, but Mario didn't say anything. Finally, Nicholson asked him, "What's your last name?"

Mario bit his lip. "Beretta," he said.

"Do your parents know you're here?" Nicholson asked.

Mario shook his head.

"Do you want me to call them and ask them to come here and get you?" Nicholson asked.

Again, Mario shook his head. "They're not home."

Fenton and Nicholson exchanged a glance. Then Fenton asked, "Is there anyone at your home?"

"Just my brother Angelo and my sister Isabella."

"How old are your brother and sister?" Nicholson continued.

"Angelo's eight and Isabella's three," Mario told him. "I think something bad happened to my mom and dad." Tears formed in the boy's big, dark eyes and his fears for his parents seemed to conquer his fear of the two officers as he came a few steps closer.

"Come over here and sit down," Nicholson invited him. He stood up and showed the boy a chair. Hesitatingly, Mario came over and climbed into the chair.

"Can I get you something to eat or drink?" Fenton asked him.

Mario shook his head again. "I'm not hungry." He sniffled. "Can you do something for my mom and dad? My dad didn't mean to be bad."

Instantly, Fenton's mind went back to the mob battle that had taken place that morning. None of the five Moretti men that had been killed had been named Beretta, but that didn't mean that one of the three unidentified men hadn't been the boy's father. For that matter, there were probably other men who had been wounded and possibly have died, even though none of them had shown up in any of the hospitals in the area. But he was getting ahead of himself. Just because the boy's father was Italian and had apparently gone missing today didn't mean that he was involved with Moretti or his enemies.

"We'll do everything we can," Fenton promised Mario. "Can you tell us what happened?"

"I don't know," Mario said. "My dad, he's friends with some real bad men. They wanted him to go with them before church, but he wouldn't go. They came later and took Mom and Dad away. We didn't know what to do. Angelo said I shouldn't tell the police because if you found Dad, you'd him in jail. I just want you to find them, so I waited till Angelo fell asleep."

Nicholson patted the boy's shoulder. "You were smart to come to us. Can you tell us your parents' names?"

"Nico and Mattea Beretta," Mario said.

Then, at Nicholson's prompting, Mario described his parents, as well as the men who had taken them away, as well as he could. They weren't very clear descriptions, but it was obvious from them that, while the Berettas were very Italian, their abductors were certainly not Italian. There were three of them, one of them white with blond hair, another white with red hair, and the third black, and all tall and rough with longish hair. Fenton rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he listened. The descriptions didn't particularly ring any bells, although he'd seen plenty of people who could fit those vague descriptions, but a hunch was forming in the back of his mind. He didn't want to say anything in front of Mario or even Nicholson, but it might worth talking it over with Fenton's partner, Mitch Johnson.

"You and your brother and sister can't just live all by yourselves until we find your parents," Fenton told Mario. "Do you have any grandparents or aunt or uncles who could take care of you?"

Mario shook his head again. "There's Uncle Giovanni, but I don't know where he is. He left a long time ago and he never came back."

"Okay, well, we'll find someone who can take care of you," Fenton assured him. "Do you know your address? We should find Angelo and Isabella and bring them here to the precinct until we can find someone who can take care of you. Also, we might be able to find something at your house that will help us find your parents."

"I can show you where it is," Mario offered.

"Good enough," Nicholson said. "I'll go find someone else…"

"I'm going to go along," Fenton interrupted. "It's just a feeling I have."

"You'll still need some help, so I'll go round up a few people," Nicholson insisted. He stood up and exited the room, leaving Fenton and Mario alone.

Mario looked up at Fenton with tears trickling down his face. "Are you going to put my dad in jail?"

Fenton hesitated. He never liked having to answer that question, especially not when it was asked by a child. In this instance, though, he didn't even know whether the boy's father had broken any laws or not. With "friends" like these men that Mario had described, chances were that he had, but there was no point in saying anything definite, one way or the other.

He was spared having to answer the question for the moment, because he was interrupted by the unceremonious entrance of Sergeant Mitch Johnson, who came stumbling in, looking only slightly more awake than last time Fenton had seen him.

"Hardy, I just got a call," he announced, evidently not noticing the boy sitting in the chair that Fenton was crouching next to. "Forensics just got a possible ID on one of those three guys."

Fenton stood up and pulled him aside. "Not so loud," he told him, nodding toward Mario. "What did they get?"

"A facial match on one of the guys with a driver's license issued to a Robert Hatch from the Bronx," Johnson told him. "Which means we've got an address and everything."

"Great," Fenton said. "We'll get some people from over there to check it out. I've got something here that I think is worth looking into."


	2. A Hunch, a Theory, & a Piece of Bad News

J.M.J.

_Author's note: Thank you for continuing to read! Here is the next chapter. It seems like a long time ago that I posted the first chapter, even though it's only been a week. The good part about that, though, is that I've had some time to think about and edit this chapter, which is always helpful! Thank you to Candylou, BMSH, Cherylann Rivers, MargaretA66, ErinJordan, and max2013 for your reviews. I'm super excited to you all back again, and I hope you enjoy the story!_

_**Chapter II**_

_**A Hunch, a Theory, and a Piece of Bad News**_

"Let me get this straight," Mitch Johnson was saying as he sat in the passenger seat of Fenton's car on their way to the Beretta apartment, while two other officers took Mario there in their car since the boy had wanted to ride in the more traditional-looking police car. "This random kid comes into the precinct to report that his parents were kidnapped, and you assume that they were nabbed by the gang that Moretti's boys were fighting because they had kind of long hair? Interesting. I have to give you that. It's very interesting."

Fenton gave an impatient little shake of his head. "I know, I know. It's just a hunch, but it does seem to add up. Look at the timing. Most of the churches in this neighborhood have their Sunday services somewhere between eight and ten in the morning. That means that whatever church the Berettas go to, 'before church' probably means somewhere between seven and nine. The fight happened at ten, so it's not too much of a stretch to think that that other gang could have been trying to recruit Beretta for it, or else for whatever they were doing when the fight started."

"But we don't even know how the fight started or who started it or anything," Johnson objected. "We're not in a business where we can just guess about these things."

"It's not just the timing, even though that's coincidental enough to make a person stop and wonder," Fenton continued. "It's also the way Mario described the three men."

"Ah, the longish hair," Johnson said.

"Yes, but also that they're a mixed race group. It was a mixed race group that Moretti's boys were fighting. Of the three men who were killed, one appeared to be Asian descent, one Middle Eastern, and one white. This means we're not dealing with an ordinary mob here. The mobs are too heavily dependent on ethnicity. We've got the Italians, the Irish mob, the Japanese, the Jewish, just to name a few. They don't allow people in who aren't from those ethnicities."

"Just because the mobsters are racists doesn't mean every other criminal is," Johnson said. "We've dealt with mixed race groups of criminals plenty of times."

"True, but they weren't quite so apparently mixed up with the mobs," Fenton insisted. "The one group took on Moretti, and the other walked into a man's house in daylight and kidnapped him and his wife. These aren't ordinary criminals."

"They're gutsy, okay, but it still doesn't prove that they're the same group."

"Then, there is the longish hair, too," Fenton went on, although he had to admit to himself a little bit of hesitation to talk about that one. "All three of the men who were killed in the fight had a rose tattooed on their necks. It was the same tattoo, so probably it's an identifier of their gang or whatever they want to call themselves. They all had shoulder-length hair, too, which probably covered their tattoos. What if these three who went after Beretta and his wife had the same tattoos and the same hairstyles to cover them?"

Johnson turned to look out the window at the passing sights and sounds of the busy city, even at this hour of the night. Finally, he turned back to Fenton. "You know, believe it or not, I believe you. It's crazy, I know, but you've had some crazy hunches before and you've been right almost every time. I've got no reason to doubt you now. Still, we're cops. We need facts, and I just don't see any way of getting enough to prove that the two incidents are related until we know more about each, individual incident."

"Absolutely," Fenton agreed. "So let's get what we can on the kidnapping."

It was only a couple of minutes longer before they reached the Beretta apartment. Both Fenton and Johnson felt a little shiver of dismay as they looked up at the rundown apartment building with its graffiti-covered walls and its cracked windows. Mario didn't seem to think twice about it as he led them up the rickety stairs to an apartment on the second floor, explaining as he went that his parents didn't allow him or his siblings to use the elevator because they didn't trust it.

Mario opened the door to apartment 202 without using a key, which once again caused the officers to cast glances at one another. Then he flipped on the light switch and called softly, "Angelo?"

A boy who was a couple of years older than Mario peeked out through a door off to the left. "What did you bring the cops for, Mario?"

Mario cast a helpless glance up at the officers.

Fenton stepped forward to take charge of the situation. He had a feeling that Angelo was the type of boy who would respond best to being treated as maturely as possible. "I'm Lieutenant Fenton Hardy, and these are Sergeant Mitch Johnson and Officers Kate Sawada and Jeremy Dillon. I take it you're Mario's brother, Angelo?"

Angelo gave a barely perceptible nod, his brown eyes still narrowed. "We don't need any cops."

"Mario said that some men took your parents away," Fenton told him. "They could be in big trouble. We can help them."

"Cops don't help nobody," Angelo declared.

"Couldn't you at least give us a shot?" Fenton asked. "At the very least, you and your siblings can't stay here alone."

"Why not?" Angelo replied. "I can take care of us."

"Oh? How are you going to buy food for them? Do you have a job?" Fenton glanced around at the drab apartment with its threadbare furniture and carpet. The walls were a stark white and almost completely bare, except for a small, plastic crucifix above the entrance. He was beginning to wonder whether the children's parents had jobs.

Angelo hesitated only slightly. "We have food here already. Enough to last until Mom and Dad get back."

Fenton shook his head. "I'm sorry, Angelo, but since we don't know when your parents are coming back, we can't let you stay here by yourselves."

Angelo turned to Mario with a glare. "Now look what you did. They're going to take us away and we'll never see Mom and Dad again."

"That's not true," Johnson broke in quickly. "When we find your parents, we'll bring you back to them."

"Do you have any relatives you can stay with until then?" Fenton asked.

"Just Uncle Giovanni," Angelo said with obvious disgust. "He's not gonna help us, though. He ran out a long time ago."

"You don't have any other relatives?" Fenton asked again.

Both boys shook their heads. Then a little girl appeared in the doorway next to Angelo. She was about three, which made her just the right age to be the sister Mario had mentioned, Isabella, and she was rubbing her eyes as if she had just been woken up.

"Where's Mama and Papa?" she asked.

Officer Sawada stepped forward, smiling brightly at the girl. "They're still away. My name is Kate. I'm a police officer. I'm going to help you and your brothers find a place where you can stay until your mama and papa come home again, okay?"

Isabella looked shyly at the officer who had crouched down and was holding out her hand to her. Then she looked up at her brother, Angelo, who was giving her a disapproving frown.

"They're just trying to help us," Mario argued.

In the end, Angelo had no choice but to give in. Officers Sawada and Dillon took them back to the precinct, while Fenton and Johnson remained behind to investigate the apartment. The furnishings were sparse and old. It was clear that the Berettas were not well-off financially.

Fenton flipped through the calendar hanging on the wall, which had clearly been used to keep track of appointments. There was nothing written down for the day before, nor could he find anything else out of the ordinary. He then looked through the kitchen drawers, but there were only the ordinary utensils stored away in them.

Johnson, meanwhile, had focused his attention on the bathroom, paying careful attention to drains and other common hiding places for drugs. The most likely scenario, he felt, was that Nico Beretta had been peddling drugs as a cushion to his income and he had disappointed some of his customers, who had then decided to get revenge. Nevertheless, so far, he could find no evidence of drugs anywhere in the house.

"We should keep our eyes open for an address book or something," he said as he worked. "Just because the kids don't know where this Uncle Giovanni is, doesn't mean that Beretta or his wife haven't kept in touch with him."

"Right," Fenton agreed as he closed the last drawer in the kitchen.

He opened one of the cupboard doors. It was practically empty, except for a few bottles of spices that looked as if they had been purchased quite a few years earlier. The next cupboard held a faded assortment of plates and bowls that had probably once been fancy but were now chipped and stained. They might have been a wedding gift, Fenton thought, considering that nothing else in the house looked as if it had ever been nice. Fenton took out a salad plate and looked at it, hardly knowing why. A delicate blue and gold design with white roses at intervals ran around the edges, but it was marred by an unsightly chip. The one underneath it had a crack running through it that had been glued at some point.

The drains had yielded no results for Johnson, so he had turned his attention to the medicine cabinet. He began checking inside every bottle to make sure that what was advertised on the outside was what was really inside. Everything checked out until he came to a very large bottle of hydrogen peroxide. As soon as he picked it up, he could tell that there was no liquid inside, if there was anything inside at all. He uncapped it and peered inside. Then he whistled.

"Hardy, you better come take a look at this," he called.

Fenton replaced the plate and came into the bathroom to look at what Johnson had found. Johnson held the bottle so that Fenton could see inside. Fenton blinked when he realized what it was and reached a finger in to pull it out. Twenty hundred dollar bills had been rolled up and hidden inside.

HBHBHBHBHB

Laura Hardy turned over again. It had been a restless, worrisome night, as it always was when her husband was out all night with his work. She pulled the covers down just enough so that she could see the alarm clock on the nightstand next to her. It read 5:18 a.m.

She sighed and sat up. She probably wouldn't get any more sleep that night anyway, and maybe Fenton would be coming home soon. She might as well have some breakfast as much ready for him as she could. She pulled some clothes out of her dresser and then tiptoed down the hall toward the bathroom, pausing along the way just long enough to open the door to the boys' bedroom a crack and look inside. The shaft of light that came through the open door was just enough for her to make out the dim outline of her two sons, still fast asleep. Laura smiled out of pure love for them and then continued on her way to the shower.

After her shower, she measured out all the dry ingredients for pancakes and put them in a mixing bowl. Then she took out the electric griddle and greased it. Still there was no sign of Fenton, so she scrambled some eggs and put them in the fridge. She even set out plates, but still her husband didn't return.

With nothing left to do, she sat down at the table and rested her head on her arm. She was tired after her sleepless night, and so she allowed herself to close her eyes. She truly hated the nights like this one, when Fenton was gone all night, getting into who knew what kind of danger. Even if he wasn't in danger, Laura still knew that he wasn't getting any rest. Either scenario worried her.

Five years ago, when she and Fenton had gotten married, her parents had warned her that being a police officer's wife would be difficult, but Laura had brushed it aside. She had thought that she knew what she was getting into. At first, things had been pretty well what she had expected: extra long shifts for Fenton, a general sense of dread every time the phone rang while he was on duty, and an overworked, tired husband at the end of most shifts. Then Fenton had become a detective and everything had changed. Extra long shifts turned into shifts that lasted well over twenty-four hours. She never knew what to think when the phone rang now because she never knew whether Fenton was sitting behind a desk or if he was on some undercover assignment that he would rather not talk about, which meant that the phone could be him calling to say he would be late again or another officer calling to say he wouldn't be coming home at all. And she could tell that her overworked husband was swiftly becoming a burned out husband.

Laura must have dozed off, because she suddenly awakened with a start to the sound of a key in the lock. She breathed a sigh of relief and stood up just as Fenton entered the door, looking very worn out.

"Fenton!" she said, rushing to him and embracing him. "I was worried. I didn't know when to expect you back."

A smile appeared on Fenton's lips and he pulled her in for a kiss before returning her embrace. "I'm sorry, Laura. I didn't know when I'd get home either. I was afraid it might be even longer than this."

Laura looked up at the clock on the wall. "It's after six. That's twenty hours straight." She let her shoulders sag a little. "I guess you've worked longer shifts than that."

"That's true." Fenton yawned and his eyes fell on the already set table. "Is breakfast ready? I'm half-starved. More than half, honestly."

"I'll have it ready in just a minute," Laura said, rushing toward the kitchen. She put the eggs on the stove and finished mixing up the pancakes in practically no time flat. Then she sat down at the table again next to Fenton, who had already taken a seat there. "How was it?" she asked, knowing better than to ask for any more details than that.

Fenton shrugged. "There's been worse days, I guess…" He paused, and then decided all at once to be completely honest. "It hasn't been too good, though. I'm only going to have time to sleep for a couple of hours and then I need to get back."

"It's that shooting I heard about on the news, isn't it?" Laura asked. "I knew it was, once I'd heard what time it happened at. That was right before they called you in."

Fenton nodded. "Yeah. It's that and one other thing. It was ugly, Laura. I'd rather not talk about it right now."

"Okay." Laura hurried to flip the pancakes over, and then she returned to Fenton's side.

"What did you and the boys do yesterday?" Fenton asked.

"We just stayed here at the apartment," Laura said, intentionally not mentioning the fact that the shooting was the reason she had decided to stay at home after they had returned from church. "The boys played, and then Joe got the idea that climbing up on the couch and trying to jump off the back looked terribly fun, but I stopped him in time. I think that was about the most exciting thing that happened. Well, except for when they both fell asleep at the same time and I actually got to read for a little while."

"Sounds thrilling." Fenton glanced around at the four walls that had closed in and protected his family all that long day. It was a comfortable apartment, at least, even if it was small. There was just the front room, which served as a combination living and dining room, with the kitchen as little more than an alcove of it, cut off by a counter. Then there was a hallway with a bathroom and the boys' bedroom on one side and Fenton and Laura's bedroom on the other. It was as clean as a home with two toddlers could be and all the furniture and decorations were new and cheery. Yet, Fenton couldn't help thinking he would soon become depressed staying there all day, afraid to go out.

Laura stood up again to dish up the now-ready pancakes and give the eggs a stir. "I think I'd better give them a few more minutes," she said. "Oh, yes, there was one other thing that happened yesterday."

"What was that?" Fenton asked, eagerly setting to work on the pancakes.

"Gertrude called." Laura tried to force a smile. "She wanted to know if she could come and stay for a while in a few days. I should have asked you first, I guess, but I told her to come. She'll be here on Wednesday."

Fenton sighed. "Well, there's nothing else we could do, I guess. She's having a hard time ever since that jerk Mike dumped her."

"Poor Gertrude," Laura said. "I think she's starting to think she'll never find anyone who will really care about her."

"She's only thirty," Fenton told her. "It's not like she's in her twilight years yet. At least, I hope not, because in a couple of years, you and I are going to be thirty."

Laura pretended to shudder. "Frightening thought. But then, you and I have each other. That makes such old age seem a little less unappealing."

They both laughed.

Then Fenton became a little more serious again. "Laura, I want to talk about moving again. Obviously, we need to move to a new apartment or a house soon, but I think we need to look at a small town again."

"Do you think right now is really the best time to talk about it?" Laura countered.

"No, of course not," Fenton replied, "but I want to talk about it again soon."

"Okay," Laura agreed, but before she could say any more, the phone rang. Laura hurried to answer.

"Hello, Laura," an overly cheery male voice on the other end of the line greeted her. "This is Casey from Missing Persons. Is your husband around?"

"Well, yes," Laura replied, handing the phone over to Fenton and telling him who it was.

"Yeah, Casey?" Fenton said, taking the phone from her. "Do you have news?"

"Yeah," Casey replied. "We ran the serial numbers on those bills Johnson found at the Beretta apartment. We got a hit on three of them. They were reported stolen in a bank robbery about two years ago."

"A bank robbery?" Fenton repeated. "That can't be right. From the looks of Beretta's apartment, he couldn't have possibly ever pulled off a bank robbery in his life."

"That's what we're thinking, too. Especially three factors, in particular. Number one, what you just said. Number two, almost a quarter of a million dollars was stolen in that bank robbery. If Beretta's only managed to keep three hundred of it, at least a few other bills would have shown up by now, and this is the first time any have. And number three, we're already about ninety-eight and a half percent sure who pulled that robbery off, and it wasn't Beretta."

"Then who was it?" Fenton asked.

"Guess."

Fenton allowed himself to roll his eyes, considering that Casey couldn't see him over the phone. "I'm really not in any mood for guessing at the moment, sergeant."

"Okay, I'll give you a hint, then," Casey said. "Gregorio Moretti."

Fenton froze. "As in Alessandro Moretti the godfather's son?"

"Ex-son, or whatever you call a kid who's been disowned by his old man."

"If Beretta is involved with Gregorio Moretti…" Fenton began.

"He's already dead," Casey concluded.

Fenton shook his head and sighed. "Probably. And before this is over, a lot of other people will be, too."


	3. Battle Plans

J.M.J.

_Author's note: Thanks for continuing to read! I'm having fun with this story, even though the writing process is slow going because I have an original story that I'm really working hard on to get the first draft done by the deadline that I set for myself. In the meantime, I've enjoyed reading the reviews on the last chapter. Thank you so much to Bkworm4life4, Cherylann Rivers, ErinJordan, Candylou, max2013, and drogorath! As per one of your comments – yes, there's no way anyone could rise so high in the ranks of the NYPD so quickly in real life. I'm taking some creative liberty in having Fenton a lieutenant, mainly because in the books, he is said to have been a distinguished member of the NYPD and I think that the rank of lieutenant is thrown out there, but he clearly resigned fairly early in his, since Frank and Joe seem to have grown up in Bayport and Fenton doesn't seem to be more than mid-forties in the books. I'm trying to be realistic otherwise, so hopefully you can overlook this bit of unlikelihood. ;)_

**Chapter III**

**Battle Plans**

"Fenton, what's wrong?" Laura asked, watching her husband's face as he hung up the phone after talking with Casey.

Fenton slowly sank back down into his chair, suddenly no longer very interested in breakfast. "It's just this case. I need to get a couple of hours of sleep, and then I need to go back in."

Laura looked at him closely. She hadn't been able to hear Casey's part of the conversation, and so she hadn't fully understood Fenton's part, either. Yet, it was clear to her that the news had upset her husband deeply. "Okay, but just remember that I'm always here if you want to talk to me."

"I know." Fenton looked up at her and tried to smile, but his thoughts were clearly elsewhere at the moment. "I think I'll go to bed."

He stood up and turned around to head for the bedroom, but two little boys were blocking the way. Their faces lit up as they seemed to realize who was here.

"Dad!" shouted Frank, the older one, while his younger brother, Joe, echoed, "Daddy!"

The boys started to rush forward, and Fenton crouched down so that he could be on their level. They practically bowled him over trying to give him a bear hug.

"Oof!" Fenton put one hand out behind him to catch himself. "Either you two are getting bigger, or that old age your mom and I were just talking about is catching up to me."

"Are you staying home today?" Frank asked eagerly.

Fenton sighed. "I'm afraid I can't today."

If Frank was disappointed by the answer, Joe didn't seem to understand. Instead, he just said, "Watch me," and then ran over to the couch and started to climb up on it. Laura quickly scooped him up.

"You can't jump off the couch, Joe. I already told you that," Laura said.

Joe began to squirm and reached toward the couch. "I want to!"

"You can't," Laura insisted. "Anyway, it's too early for both of you to be awake. Why don't you go back to bed?"

"Dad and you are awake," Frank pointed out.

"But I'm going to go to bed myself," Fenton told him.

It took some persuading, but finally both boys were back in bed, asleep once more. As soon as that was accomplished, Fenton crawled into bed without even bothering to undress. Even Laura could feel her restless night getting the better of her, and she, too, took the opportunity to get a few more minutes' sleep.

HBHBHBHBHB

It was early afternoon when Fenton returned to the precinct and met with the other officers who were key in working on the two cases. In addition to himself, there was his partner, Mitch Johnson, as well as Alex Casey, who was heading the missing persons case, and Danielle Harbinger from Forensics. Finally, there was Christine Roche, an FBI agent whose specialty was mob activity. Fenton introduced her to the other three officers.

"So," Christine said after acknowledging the introductions, "I understand that you have a theory that these two cases, the Moretti case and the Beretta case are connected, Lieutenant Hardy?"

"Right," Fenton agreed and briefly outlined his reasons for thinking so.

Christine listened intently, and if she thought the theory was farfetched, she didn't say so. Instead, she simply said, "We'll need to be careful not to simply assume that that's true or that it's false, but I agree that having a single team work on both cases might be advantageous. The fact that Nico Beretta may have had some dealings with Gregorio Moretti does lend credence to the whole idea."

Danielle stirred uneasily in her chair. "Um, I don't want to sound like I've been going around my entire career with my head in the clouds, but I don't know very much about Alessandro or Gregorio Moretti. Could we go over everything we do know about them so that we're all on the same page about that?"

"Good idea," Christine agreed. "Alessandro Moretti was born in 1935 in Chicago. His parents were Italian immigrants, and his father worked as hired muscle for some of the various gangsters of that era until he was arrested shortly after Alessandro's birth and served out a life sentence in a state penitentiary. That left Alessandro's mother to raise him alone, a circumstance for which Alessandro has evidently never forgiven society. His mother brought him here to New York when he was twelve. It was shortly thereafter that he fell in with the mobs. He clawed his way to the top, started his own family, and there he remains to this day.

"There are four things that it takes to do that: good strategies, enough money to keep your people loyal, an excellent lawyer, and a willingness to eliminate competition when necessary and not more than that. Alessandro Moretti has all four. He's old-school with his convictions, too; he's as much a '30s gangster as you could expect to find here in the '90s. It's his one weakness, but it's not much, considering how long we've been trying to use it against him without success.

"His son, Gregorio, has succeeded in this where we've failed. From what we've learned, when Gregorio was in his twenties – he's past forty now – he had a falling out with his father over Alessandro's old-fashioned ideas. In the end, Alessandro essentially disowned him. We're about ninety-nine percent sure that Gregorio has been involved in dozens of violent crimes over the last two decades, but he did inherit one thing from his father: the ability to pick out an accomplished lawyer. We've nearly nailed him several times, but every time his lawyer has been able to get him off, or at least get him a lighter sentence. In the last twenty years, he's spent a total of five and a half in jail, just in the minor charges that we were able to bring against him. I guess it's still better than we've done with Alessandro."

"Who is this lawyer that Gregorio has been using?" Mitch asked. "From the sounds of it, if we could do something about him, we could get Gregorio."

Christine chuckled humorlessly. "Not much chance there, but for what it's worth, his name is Michael Wade."

"Doesn't sound Italian," Mitch commented.

"He's not," Christine confirmed. "One of the old-fashioned ideas that Gregorio has rejected is the idea that he only surround himself with fellow-Italians. He'll take whoever fits his needs the best."

Fenton cast a significant look at Mitch before turning to Christine again. "What are the chances of Gregorio trying to start his own mob and then going after Alessandro?"

"He hasn't done it yet," Christine said with a sureness that indicated it was a possibility that she had thought of before now. "At least, not that we know of. Now that he's older and more experienced, I would think that he would realize the risks involved in that and shy away from trying it, but it is a possibility."

"So this Rose Gang, or whatever you want to call them, could be Gregorio's own little family?" Mitch asked.

"It's possible," Christine agreed. "What do we know about them so far?"

"Danielle probably knows the most of any of us yet," Fenton said, and everyone looked over at her.

Danielle brushed a strand of hair from her face. "Right, yes, well. For starters, we know that they're not a traditional mob, and three out of the three known members of this gang have that rose tattoo on their neck, which could be an identifier for this gang. We've tentatively identified one of the men who were killed in the fight as Robert Hatch, who lives – or, most likely, lived – in the Bronx. We're still waiting for DNA confirmation from samples taken from the apartment, but there doesn't seem to be much doubt. The other two men received significant wounds to their faces, so we're still working on full facial reconstruction on them as well as DNA tests.

"The medical examiner has been doing autopsies on all the bodies to confirm COD. So far, they all seem to have actually died from the gunshot wounds received, except one. The body that most likely belongs to Robert Hatch, despite having two gunshot wounds, neither of which would have necessarily been fatal on their own, has a high concentration of cyanide and appears to have died as a result of swallowing a cyanide tablet."

"That's a twist," Alex Casey commented. "If his wounds were non-fatal, why would he take cyanide? Why would he have even had a cyanide tablet in the first place?"

"The most likely reason is that he was ordered not to allow himself to be taken alive," Fenton said. "If he was wounded so that he couldn't escape, he probably took the tablet to keep himself from being captured either Moretti or by us."

"That's not normal mob behavior, either, and it doesn't sound particularly like Gregorio," Christine pointed out.

"What about you, Casey?" Fenton asked. "You identified those bills. Have you made any other progress?"

Alex shook his head. "Not a bit. We got the kids put in a foster home, but that's it so far. There was nothing in the Beretta apartment that seems to indicate who Beretta was mixed up with, other than those bills."

"What about the uncle?" Mitch asked. "Did you find him yet?"

"No. We're looking into every Giovanni Beretta in the city, but so far none of them seem to be the one we're looking for. We did get out of Mario that his uncle is his father's brother, so that cuts out the possibility that he has a different last name, unless, of course, he's a half-brother or a step-brother. Plus, too, there's a strong possibility that the one we're looking for no longer lives here. We'll keep you all updated, of course."

"So, what are you planning on doing next?" Christine asked.

"Divide forces now. There are quite a few angles to work on," Fenton said. "Casey, you and your people keep trying to find Giovanni Beretta. Even though he's apparently estranged from his brother, he may have some idea what Nico is up to. Dr. Harbinger, keep doing what you're doing. We need those other two bodies identified. Also, get a picture of one of those tattoos to Johnson here. Johnson, I want you to get to work on the angle with those tattoos. See if you can find the artist who did them and if you can find any matches for known criminals. Of course, I'm in no position to be giving you orders, Agent Roche, but I am hoping that you can focus on getting information on Gregorio's current situation, what he's up to, who he's been seeing, all that sort of thing."

"Definitely," Christine agreed. "What will you be doing?"

"I'm going to pay a call on Alessandro Moretti," Fenton said.

"What?" Mitch asked. "What can you possibly hope to gain from that? Alessandro's not going to admit to being involved in the shooting, and he just might take objection to a cop asking questions like that."

"Alessandro's not stupid," Fenton told him. "He's not going to try anything. I doubt he'll even be surprised. As for how much I'll learn, he won't give me anything intentionally, but he might let something slip by accident, especially if he's under the strain of knowing that his son has declared war on him."

"Are you sure you don't want me to come along?" Christine asked.

Fenton shook his head. "Bringing an FBI agent along will only make him suspicious. I'll pick another officer to bring with me. Okay. Now let's get to work. And remember, I want to informed of any and all developments as they happen."

HBHBHBHBHB

"Rar! Rar!" Joe said as he walked his toy T-Rex across the floor, straight at the Duplo wall that Frank was building. With another roar, Joe had the T-Rex walk right over it and knock it down.

"Joe! Stop it!" Frank said in disgust, as he righted the wall.

"No," Joe replied with a mischievous grin, bringing the T-Rex back for another round.

This time, the building blocks came apart, and the wall separated into three pieces. Oblivious, Joe continued playing, crawling away so that he could have the dinosaur "walk" on the floor beside him. Frank picked up two of the pieces of the wall and looked at them with as much horror as if they had actually broken. Suddenly, playing Duplos didn't sound so fun anymore and he began to look around for some other way to entertain himself.

Meanwhile, Joe's T-Rex was continuing its rampage around the living room before making its way to the kitchen, where Laura was baking a pie while keeping half her attention on her boys. Joe stopped in the middle of his game to look up at his mother.

"Water me, mommy," he requested.

Laura smiled at his choice of wording for the request. "What do you say?" she asked.

Joe look confused for a moment before repeating his petition, "Water me, mommy."

"Can you say, 'please'?" Laura asked gently.

"Please," Joe repeated eagerly, understanding this time.

"Okay. Just a second."

Laura picked up his sippy cup from the counter and began filling it.

"No," Joe said as he watched her. "Orange juice."

Laura looked down at him and sighed. After pouring the water back out, she filled the sippy cup with orange juice instead. She had only just begun screwing the top on the cup when there was a loud crash from the living room that made her jump. Frank wasn't in sight, so she hurried around the counter to where she could see the entire room. Frank was standing shame-faced beside a fallen floor lamp, pieces its shattered light bulb all around it.

"Oh," Laura said, a little too surprised to think of anything else to say. "What happened?"

"I wanted to see the light." Frank pointed at the shattered light bulb and started to walk toward it.

"No!" Laura told him sharply in her concern. "Don't move, Frank."

She hurried forward and unplugged the lamp before picking Frank up with the intention of carrying him to safety. No sooner had she picked him up than she heard the thump of something hitting the kitchen floor, a splash, and a cry from Joe. She rushed into the kitchen and found Joe sitting in a puddle of orange juice, his head and the front of his shirt drenched and sticky and the sippy cup, which he had evidently tried to get off the counter by himself, was lying beside him. He was already starting to cry.

That was only the beginning of a very long afternoon for Laura. While she was washing Joe and getting him changed into dry clothes, Frank announced that he would be helpful by cleaning up the glass in the living room. Laura had to chase after him, while Joe, who only had his shirt on at that point, wandered into the kitchen where he decided that the puddle of orange juice, which Laura had forgotten by this point, was much more fun than terrifying. He started splashing around in it.

Laura cleaned up the glass as quickly as she could, and then she went into the kitchen to find orange juice tracked all over and Joe once again soaking wet and sticky. While she was cleaning and drying him off and getting him into dry clothes again, Frank once again tried to be helpful. This time, it was by sopping up the orange juice with an entire roll of paper towels, although his own clothes soaked up just as much of the water. That left Laura to wash Frank as well, during which time, Joe declared he was hungry, a sentiment which Frank echoed.

In the end, when Laura had both boys clean and fed and had managed to get Joe to take a nap and Frank to sit down and play with his toys again and had both messes completely cleaned up, she sat down at the table to try to catch her breath and steady her nerves again. She had no sooner sat down than she remembered the pie in the oven and realized that in her distraction, she had forgotten to set the timer. She ran to check it only to discover that the edges were burned black and the filling had bubbled out over the sides and onto the bottom of the oven. For a moment, she had to just close the oven door and rest her face in her hands.

"I need to get out of this apartment tomorrow," she groaned aloud.

"Can we go to park?" Frank asked, overhearing and coming running from the living room.

"Sure, why not?" Laura replied, although at the moment, a spa day sounded more appealing than a trip to the park. Then she set to work dealing with the pie.

She was in the middle of cleaning the oven when the phone rang. She wiped her hands off as well as she could and picked it up with a "Hello?" that was far more harried than she meant it to be.

"Is this the home of Fenton Hardy, the detective?" a voice asked.

"Yes. Who is this?" Laura replied.

"An acquaintance," the voice answered. "Tell your husband I know where he lives now, and I'll make good use of that knowledge if he doesn't lay off this case."


	4. An Unexpected Visit

J.M.J.

_Author's note: Thanks for continuing to read this story! Thank you especially to everyone who took the time to review the last chapter (or any chapter since I posted the last one): t4swp, ErinJordon, Candylou, Bkworm4life4, Guest, max2013, and Cherylann Rivers! I do want to let you know that I think this story will be a little shorter than what will be typical for the rest of this series, probably around ten chapters. Later stories in this series will probably be twenty or more chapters. I hope you enjoy!_

**Chapter IV**

**An Unexpected Visit**

The unmarked police car drew up in front of the intimidating residence of Alessandro Moretti. It was a large house, more of a mansion, really, surrounded by a tall iron fence that defied anyone to try to enter without welcome. The two officers in the car were feeling very much that they would have rather visited Moretti in his office, but he was at home today, so they didn't have that option.

A security guard approached the car, and Fenton, who was driving, rolled the window down. "Afternoon, officers," the guard greeted them, using the business-like politeness that all Moretti's mere hirelings used when dealing with the police. It was the more powerful members of the organization who dared to be defiant. "Are you looking to see Mr. Moretti?"

"Yes," Fenton said, giving the man a curious appraisal. Despite the car being unmarked and neither man inside it being in uniform, he had still picked them out as cops. Perhaps someone from Moretti's office had given warning that two detectives were on their way to pay a call. "It's an urgent matter and we need to see him immediately."

"Do you have an appointment, officer?" the guard asked, looking at a clipboard which no doubt showed all the appointments that Moretti had for that day.

"No," Fenton admitted, "but as I said, it's a very important matter. We won't take up much of Mr. Moretti's time."

"I'll have to call in and make sure it's all right," the guard said, adding with surprisingly little insolence, "Unless you have a search warrant, of course."

"We just want to talk to him," Fenton assured the man.

The guard went into the booth beside the gate and, through the glass, Fenton saw him pick up a telephone receiver.

The officer sitting in the passenger's seat was more interested in gawking around at as much of the estate as he could see than in watching the security guard. "I've never been to this place before," he commented. "I'd always heard that Moretti was loaded, but I never expected a set-up like this. Makes you wonder about that old saying about crime not paying."

"According to Moretti, he didn't make his fortune through crime, Brink, so I wouldn't go bringing that point up to him," Fenton told him. "In fact, how about you leave the talking to me? I think that might be the best way to try to draw Moretti out."

"Anything you say, Lieutenant," Brink replied.

A moment later, the guard returned to say that Moretti was willing to talk to the officers. He opened the gate, and Fenton drove through. The detective parked in front of the house, and the two men went to the door. A butler showed them to an extravagantly-furnished sitting room.

Brink looked about him in admiration at the paintings on the wall and the plush chairs and the thick carpet. "If I didn't know where the money for this place came from, I'd be impressed," he whispered to Fenton. "As it is, I wouldn't feel right even just sitting in one of those chairs."

Fenton shushed him, and just in time, because the butler returned a moment later, escorting Alessandro Moretti himself. It wasn't the first time either officer had seen Moretti, but neither could help feeling the same sensation of disappointment that each felt every time they saw him. Moretti was hardly the suave, stylish mobster that television promised, or that might be expected from his home. Instead, he was a little, stooped, old man whose only hair left was a wavy, little cloud of gray and who wheezed when he talked. His health seemed to have taken a turn for the worse since the last time Fenton had seen him, for he hobbled in with a cane and practically collapsed into the first chair that he came to, waving for his callers to sit as well as he tried to catch his breath. Fenton and Brink obeyed the request, Brink sitting just a little too uneasily to look natural.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Moretti," Fenton greeted him to fill the silence. "I'm Lieutenant Fenton Hardy and this is Officer…"

"Yes, yes," Moretti wheezed, waving his hand to punctuate his interruption. "You've both annoyed me before. Forgive my abruptness, but I'm not feeling well today."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Fenton replied out of pure politeness, but he wasn't nearly so sorry as his words let on. There was a part of him that pitied the old man in his ill health, but there was also a part that was delighted by the fact that Moretti seemed so distraught. In his present state, he might very well let much more slip out than he intended. "We'll try to make this as brief as possible. It's about the shooting yesterday. As you no doubt know, eight men were killed, five of whom were known to be in your employ."

"They weren't working for me when they got killed," Moretti said. "Once my employees are off the clock, they can do whatever they want with their time. It's none of my doing if some of them decide to get a little extra cash in illegal ways."

"Of course. Still, all five of these men did work for you, which is a strange coincidence, especially considering that this isn't the first time some of your employees have been killed."

Moretti glared at him from underneath his drooping eyelids, but then he quickly wiped the look away. "That's all it is: a coincidence. I check my employees' criminal pasts out, but I don't refuse to hire a guy just because he has a record. Most of them just want to get on with their lives, and a few of them would rather keep on breaking laws. There's nothing I can do about that."

"Could you possibly give us access to look at things like these men's schedules and their job descriptions?" Fenton requested. "They must have known each other from work, and maybe we can learn something from how often they worked the same shifts and how close together they worked and so forth."

Moretti shook his head. "That stuff's private. Can't give it to you without a court order."

"Could you at least tell me the names of any supervisors these men had?" Fenton asked without missing a beat. "They might be able to tell us what we need to know, plus they might already have some idea what these men were doing."

Whether Moretti would have agreed or not, Fenton never learned. Before he had the chance to do either, the butler returned to the room, excusing himself in the most polite terms he could manage, although it was clear he was excited about something. He bent down and whispered something to his employer. Moretti's neck stiffened and his face reddened with anger.

Then he turned to the two officers. "If you don't mind, officers, there's something I must take care of immediately."

Without giving them a chance to protest or question him, he pulled himself to his feet and hobbled out of the room on his cane. The butler followed him.

"I wonder what happened to rock his boat like that," Brink said. "Maybe that rose tattoo gang hit some more of his guys."

Rather than answering, Fenton rose from his chair and went across the room to the door. He tried the knob, but it wouldn't turn. "Whatever it is, he doesn't want us to know what it is. He's locked us in."

Brink jumped to his feet and ran to the door. He jiggled it back and forth several times but with no more result than Fenton had received. "What is he trying to prove? Locking up two police officers? I'll personally arrest him the second he opens this door!"

"It's a much bolder move than I expected from someone who's usually as careful as he is," Fenton agreed, stepping back to size up the situation more effectively. "On the other hand, he'll probably just tell us that this was a mistake and he didn't mean to lock us in. He might even blame his butler. It doesn't instill any confidence in any of us, but it really won't get us any closer to arresting him."

Brink began banging on the door with his fist and shouting at the top of his lungs, "Let us out of here, Moretti!"

A moment later, the door opened, but their rescuer was not Moretti or even the butler. Instead, it was a harried-looking young woman with her sleeves rolled up and a dust cloth in her hand. "Goodness! What happened?" she asked.

"Your boss Moretti tried to lock us in his drawing room," Brink stormed. "Where is he? I'm going to go arrest him right now!"

"Cool it, Brink," Fenton warned him. "We'll never learn anything rushing in on him and blowing up. It could have been an accident."

"I'm sure it was," the cleaning woman agreed. "This door locks by itself all the time when it's closed."

"You see?" Fenton said. "Now, you just calm down and follow my lead." He turned to the woman. "Ma'am, do you know right off where Mr. Moretti is? We haven't finished our business with him yet."

"I don't think he wants to be disturbed right now," the woman told him. "He's in a terrible temper, ever since that terrible business yesterday. When that other man came in, I thought Mr. Moretti was going to have a heart attack."

"What other man?" Fenton asked.

"I don't know. I've never seen him before, but then I haven't worked here very long. Everyone else seemed to know him and it put them all in a flurry."

"Could you just point me in the right direction?" Fenton requested. "I might want to talk to this other man, too."

The cleaning woman finally told them where to go, and the officers made their way to the door of a very private study. Brink was still all for breaking in and arresting everyone in the house, but Fenton held him back. Signaling Brink to be quiet, Fenton put his ear against the door. He could hear Moretti talking.

"Is that all you want?" he was asking in an almost broken sort of tone. "You only want to see me destroyed? What about everything I've built?"

"Who cares?" a second man replied. "The drugs are the only thing that amount to anything. The bookmaking is a thing of the past. It's too easy for people to gamble legally."

"You don't know anything about it. I make good money from it. I'm a businessman. I wouldn't be in a business that doesn't pay. Why don't you forget your grandiose ideas?"

The other man snorted in contempt. "Because I can accomplish them. These people I met, they supply the manpower, I supply the brains. It's a perfect set-up, but you need to stay out of our way, or you're going to get worse than you did yesterday."

Moretti made a sound almost like a sob. "How can you talk to your own father that way, Gregorio?"

HBHBHBHBHB

"I don't understand, Lieutenant Hardy," Brink puffed as he followed Fenton into the precinct. "We were just about to get the goods on those guys. Why did we leave before we heard anything?"

"We heard enough," Fenton told him. "We know that that was Gregorio who came to see Alessandro, we heard enough to convince me that Gregorio was behind the shooting, as well as a witnessed admission from Alessandro that he is involved in bookmaking and drugs. That's quite a bit. We might have learned more if we had stuck around, but we also could have been caught at any moment. Don't forget that cleaning woman knew where we had gone. She might have realized what she had done and decided to rectify the situation."

At the door, the two officers parted ways. Fenton went straight down the hall to where Mitch Johnson was probably still going through descriptions of various criminals to see what he could find about the rose tattoo. He stopped short when he saw Laura, Frank, and Joe sitting and waiting with Mitch.

"Laura! What are you doing here?" Fenton asked.

"We were just about to radio you," Mitch interjected. "I'm afraid things have taken a bad twist now."

"What happened?"

Laura's hands were trembling, but she was making a valiant effort to hold them steady. She was holding Joe on her lap, while Frank was sitting in the chair next to her, apparently trying very hard to understand what was going on. Laura glanced down at her two sons.

"You two stay here with Mitch," she instructed them gently. "I need to talk to your dad."

She deposited Joe on the floor, and then led Fenton back out into the hallway. Once there, she grasped his hand, needing to feel his touch to be comforted.

"Laura, what's wrong?" Fenton asked, becoming more concerned than ever.

"Someone called the house a little while ago," Laura said. "It was a man. He asked for you, and when I said you weren't there, he told me to tell you to back off the case because he knows where we live now. I didn't think it was safe to stay there, so I got the boys and brought them down here. I'm scared, Fenton. What are we going to do?"

Fenton let out a long, slow breath, processing this terrible piece of news. "You did the right thing, bringing the boys down here, Laura. Clearly, it's not safe to go back to the apartment, at least not to stay. We'll have to find someplace else for you and the boys to live until this case is solved."

"What about you?" Laura asked. "You're not going to stay there alone, are you?"

"Of course, not," Fenton assured her, "but in case someone starts following me or something, it might be better if I don't stay with you and the boys."

Laura shook her head. "I don't like that. I don't want to be apart from you."

"It's only for a little while." Fenton brushed back a strand of blonde hair that had fallen over her cheek. "I got a good break in the case today. It won't be long before we have it all tied up."

Laura took a deep, albeit shaky, breath. "Good. That helps. If it was just me, I'd still refuse to leave you, even for just a little while, but we have to think about Frank and Joe. We have to keep them safe."

"That's right." Fenton smiled at her, trying to be reassuring. "When exactly did this happen?"

Laura glanced at her wristwatch. "About an hour and a half ago. I did take time to grab some clothes for myself and the boys. I knew I wouldn't want to go back to the apartment."

"An hour and a half ago," Fenton murmured under his breath. He and Brink hadn't even arrived at the Moretti estate an hour and half ago. There was only one way Moretti could have known at that point that Fenton was on the case.

"What do we do right now?" Laura asked.

"Just wait in the office for a few minutes," Fenton told her. "I have to have a word with Mitch."

Once the two men were in the hall, they began speaking in low tones.

"So, what did you find out?" Mitch asked.

"From Moretti?" Fenton replied. "Plenty, but that can wait for the moment. Whoever threatened Laura called her before I got to Moretti's."

"So?"

"At that point in time, the only ones who would have known I was on the case were other police officers," Fenton said. "Plus, I got the feeling that Moretti was expecting us. What if he's paid off one of our officers to keep him up to date on our investigation?"


	5. A Lead to Rockport

J.M.J.

_Author's note: Thanks for continuing to read! A special thanks to max2013, Candylou, ErinJordan, and Cherylann Rivers for your reviews on the last chapter! I know this chapter is kind of just three giant conversations – too much talking is something I struggle with as a writer. ;) However, there are at least three different very important points that get set up here, which will start paying off as early as next chapter. So, I hope you enjoy!_

**Chapter V**

**A Lead to Rockport**

"It will be one adult and two children," Mitch Johnson told the front desk clerk at the hotel. Some confusion passed through the young woman's face as she noted that there were two men, one woman, and two children in the group, but she didn't say anything. One thing a hotel employee learns quickly is not to ask too many questions.

"I don't know about this, Laura," Fenton admitted quietly, shifting holding Joe from one arm to the other. "You'll be all alone this way. Don't you think you'd be better off going to stay with your parents?"

Laura shook her head firmly. "I don't want to be that far away, just in case anything happens. I'm alone with the boys often enough as it is when you're on a case."

"It's not just that," Fenton said. "What if someone else finds out you're here? Boston isn't all that far away."

"That's true," Laura agreed. "It's close enough that it wouldn't be hard for these people to look for me there, and if they happen to know that my parents live there, it will be one of the first places they look. We took enough precautions that I don't think they're any more likely to find us here."

Fenton couldn't argue that. They had taken every precaution they could to keep the hotel Laura and the boys were going to a secret. They had borrowed a car from Officer Nicholson, a rookie who had just been going on duty and was more than happy to help Lieutenant Hardy in any way he could. Then they had made sure they weren't followed by taking a roundabout route and watching carefully. That also ensured that even Nicholson wouldn't be able to guess where they actually went by checking the odometer. Finally, Mitch was registering the room in his own name, so that even a dishonest hotel employee couldn't slip Laura's name to anyone who might come asking. Fenton realized now that it would have been better if he and Laura had stayed in the car with the boys until Mitch had the room key, and then they could go in the back way so that the receptionist wouldn't have even seen them, but it was too late now. Chances were that she would forget them anyway.

The men helped Laura to carry the little luggage she was bringing and the boys to her room. Neither Fenton nor Laura were eager to be separated, and it would probably be best if they didn't contact each other much until all this was straightened out.

"This doesn't look so bad," Mitch said, appraising the room as they entered. "Two double beds, a TV, a mini-refrigerator. All the comforts of home."

"I think our home's a little more comfortable than this," Laura replied. "You know, small town life is starting to look better and better."

"Ah, you'd both be bored in a small town," Mitch said. "There wouldn't be any mysteries to solve or criminals to stop…"

"That might be preferable," Laura interrupted. She glanced at Fenton. "Are you sure you're going to be okay staying with him until this all cleared up?"

Fenton winked at her and continued the teasing, "I'll be spending most of my time at the precinct anyway. It might be for the best."

Mitch pretended to be offended. "Hey, I offer you, out of the goodness of my heart, to let you stay at my place, at great personal risk, I might add, and this is the thanks I get?"

"It might not be too much risk if those mobsters decide that you're a threat, too," Fenton pointed out. He shook his head as he reverted to the seriousness of the situation. "We've got plenty of leads, but none of them seem to take us anywhere. Even looking for Giovanni Beretta has led us to a dead end."

"He's probably gone as far away from here as he could get," Mitch said, lending little enough encouragement. "Or he changed his name so his brother couldn't find him or both. It would be anybody's guess what he might have changed his name to."

"He could have simply changed his first name," Laura suggested. "Maybe to John?"

"It's possible," Mitch agreed. "I guess I could suggest that to Casey."

"Speaking of which, we'd probably better get back to work," Fenton said reluctantly.

"I'll head on out to the car," Mitch volunteered. "You take care, Laura. Bye, Frank and Joe."

The boys replied accordingly before they went back to examining every nook and cranny of the room.

Once Mitch had closed the door, Laura and Fenton embraced one another and simply held on in silence several minutes.

"I wish there was someone to stay with you," Fenton said finally.

"It's okay," Laura assured him. "Someone else in this close of quarters would probably start driving me crazy, anyway. Let's just get through this."

Fenton kissed her. Then he said good-bye to Frank and Joe, who didn't completely understand what was going on and were much too excited by the prospect of staying in a hotel to catch onto the somber mood of their parents. Then, slowly, reluctantly, Fenton left the room and closed the door behind him.

HBHBHBHBHB

All the way back to the precinct, Fenton and Mitch talked over the possibility of a mole, a subject they hadn't dared bring up in front of Laura and the boys.

"If there is a mole, it's most likely someone working on the case," Mitch said. "No one else would have known what your plans were."

"Unless someone mentioned it to them," Fenton replied. "To find out about that, though, we're going to have to question everybody and then the mole will know we suspect he or she exists."

"Right. So let's start small. Let's start with just the people who were in the room when we made our plans. Once we can rule them out, we'll work on everyone who's helping them on the case. If we can rule all of them out, then we'll start looking at the entire precinct."

"Well, that only gives us three suspects to start with: Alex Casey, Danielle Harbinger, and Christine Roche." Fenton rubbed his chin. "We may want to include Dave Brink on this list, since I took him along with me, so he obviously knew that I was paying a visit to Moretti."

"Four suspects. Not bad. Not to mention that it will be easy going through the backgrounds for Casey, Brink, and Dr. Harbinger, being part of the department and all. Christine Roche might be a little trickier. We're going to have to tread carefully to get the FBI to give us any info on her."

"This part of the investigation needs to be kept completely secret," Fenton said. "I believe that Brink, Casey, and Dr. Harbinger are all trustworthy, but we can't take a chance on it. Even once we're ninety-nine percent sure we can rule somebody out, I don't think we'd better tell them."

"My money's on Christine," Mitch replied. "She's been working on investigating organized crime, specifically the Moretti Family for years without making much progress. It could just be bad luck or a target who knows what he's doing or even mismanagement on Christine's part, but it could also be because she's being paid off."

Fenton shook his head slowly. "Pulling something like that off for several years in the FBI? That's risky. Still, I'd rather think it was her than one of our people. There's one way we might be able to find out."

"What's that?"

"We pass along some false information about our plans, a different piece to each one of them. If Moretti acts on any of them, we'll know where it started from, at least."

"Not exactly original, but it is tried and true," Mitch agreed. "I hate to do this, but Laura might be good bait. Tell each one of them she's in a different place, watch each of those places, and see if Moretti sends any of his people. We wouldn't actually be putting her in any danger."

Fenton considered this for a few moments before he nodded. "I don't like trying it for all four. That might be pushing it, not to mention that two of us can't watch four places at once. We'll try it on Christine, since she'll be the hardest to investigate."

Instead of going back to the precinct right away, they went to a different motel. Fenton registered there under his own name. Then, while Mitch stayed at the motel with his list of tattoo artists to try calling about the rose tattoo while he waited, Fenton returned to the precinct. By some good fortune, he found Christine Rocha waiting outside his office for him.

She stood up as soon as she saw him. "They told me you were out on a personal matter, but I thought you'd want to hear this as soon as possible, so I waited for you. You told me that you wanted to know as much as you can about Gregorio's recent activity."

"That's right," Fenton agreed. "Let's talk in my office. I've got some updates for you, too, after my visit to Moretti's."

They went inside the office and Fenton closed the door to prevent them being overheard. Then, after Christine requested that he tell his part first, Fenton explained about how his visit to Moretti had been cut short by none other than Gregorio himself, and that the overheard conversation pointed toward the fact that it was indeed Gregorio who had orchestrated the attack on Moretti's men. Then, finally, he told Christine about the threat to his family.

"That's where I've been," he concluded. "I moved Laura and the boys into a motel." He then told her the name of the decoy motel.

"That was a good idea," Christine said, "but I wouldn't go spreading around where they're staying. The point is to keep them hidden, isn't it?"

That wasn't the response Fenton was expecting, especially if Christine was the mole. Just that alone nearly convinced him that Christine must be honest, but he still wasn't going to reveal his whole plan just yet. "Of course. I just wanted you to know in case there was emergency and I needed someone to go and check on them."

"Well, I probably wouldn't be a good one to ask," Christine said. "The information I've gathered looks like it will be worth my while to head out of town to follow it up. It's a little conflicting that Gregorio is here in the city, but that doesn't prove that the information is worthless by any means."

"What information is that?" Fenton asked.

"Gregorio has apparently been spending a lot of time in a little town in Massachusetts: Rockport, to be exact. He's been seen there numerous times in the last few months. As you know, Rockport is a tourist town on the Cape Ann Peninsula. It's tiny. Seven thousand people at most. Why would Gregorio be interested in a town like that?"

"Good question," Fenton agreed. "You're going to check it out?"

"I intend to," Christine replied. "There's just one problem." She paused.

"Which is?" Fenton asked when she didn't go on.

"You said Alessandro seemed to know you were coming," Christine explained. "However, the phone call to Laura is definitely more Gregorio's style. Alessandro's more careful than that. Yet, your visit to them confirms that they are not on friendly terms. They're not going to be sharing information with each other. There's only one solution: a neutral party is selling them both information."

Fenton's astonishment was not entirely feigned at that. If Christine was the mole, she wouldn't be calling attention to the fact there was one, and if she wasn't, she must be pretty sharp to put it together so quickly. The latter made far more sense, but Fenton wasn't ready to lay all his cards on the table just yet. "What exactly are you implying?"

"I'm implying that somebody who knows our plans is also working for both Morettis at once," Christine said. "Which also means that that person is probably going to end up dead soon if he or she is not very careful. How well do you trust your people?"

"I can't speak for all of them, but who's to say it's not one of your people?" Fenton countered.

"Nobody," Christine replied. "That's why I don't want my trip to Rockport to be broadcasted anywhere. I don't want Gregorio hearing about it. I don't have any doubt that he also happens to know where I live or where my fiancé lives or my mother lives. I'm sure you get the picture."

"Yeah. What are you going to do about it? And why are you telling me this? If you don't trust your own people, why would you trust me?"

Christine chuckled. "Excellent line of questioning, which incidentally answers itself. You haven't been on the NYPD for terribly long, certainly not long enough to have risen in the ranks as high as you have normally. That means one of two things: you have connections or you're one of the best cops this city has ever seen. Ordinarily, I'd assume the former, which is why I did a thorough investigation into you when you were promoted a couple months ago. You're cleaner than my grandmother."

"That's enough to convince you to trust me?" Fenton asked.

"You're also sharp," Christine went on. "Much too sharp to drop the name of the hotel where your wife and children are staying to someone you're not completely sure of, so you must have given me a fake name, probably because you're trying to trap me as the mole. That wouldn't make a lot of sense if you were the mole."

"I'm impressed," Fenton said. "I really hope you're not a mole, because if you are, frankly, I don't think we'd be able to catch you. So, what about Rockport? Was that a real lead or are you hoping that now that you have assured me that you don't suspect me, I'll go running to Gregorio and tell him that you're going to follow something up in Rockport when you're really going to be somewhere else?"

"I wouldn't be the first one to try that, would I?" Christine replied with a grin. "But, really, Rockport is a real lead, and going there could be dangerous. If you were an FBI agent or even a private detective, I would ask you to along with me as backup, but since you did the world a disservice by becoming a city police officer with no jurisdiction outside this city, let alone in another state, that would be useless." She took a brand-new Nokia cell phone out of her purse and handed it to him. "I want you to hold onto this. I need to be able to get hold of you at any time even when you're out of your office. Answer it when it rings; it will be me calling with an update or a request of some kind. In the meantime, I'm putting some of my people on Gregorio's tail. They'll contact me if he leaves the city. I'd also appreciate it if you would put some of your people on his tail as well, just to make sure everyone's being honest."

"Okay. I can arrange for that," Fenton said. "When are you leaving?"

"As soon as we're done here," Christine replied. "I think we've covered everything. Be careful. Alessandro wants to keep up a façade of respectability, so he won't do anything that he doesn't know he can away with, but Gregorio isn't so concerned with caution. If he takes it into his head that you or any of your people are too much of a nuisance to him, he'll take the first opportunity he can get to take you out."

Fenton nodded slowly. "I know."

It was a strange conversation all the way around. There was no denying that. Something about Christine still didn't sit right with Fenton. She wouldn't be so suspicious of her own people just based on Fenton's observations. Moreover, she had wanted to talk to Fenton about her trip to Rockport _before_ she had heard it all. Either something else had happened to her that she didn't want to tell him about or she was trying to lull him into a false sense of security, either to trap him if she suspected him of being the mole or to arrange to get him out of the way.

Whichever it was, there was no point having Mitch Johnson sit around at that motel any longer. That trap obviously wasn't going to work at this point. Fenton picked up his office phone and dialed Mitch's number. Rather than going into details over the phone, he simply told Mitch to check out of the motel and come back.

"Something go wrong?" Mitch asked.

"Maybe," Fenton said. An idea struck him as he remembered something that Christine had said. "Do you know any good private detectives, by any chance?"


	6. Intruder

J.M.J.

_Author's note: Thank you so much for continuing to read! When I started this story, I wasn't sure if there would be much interest in it, so I'm really glad so many of you seem to be enjoying it! In particular, thank you to MargaretA66, ErinJordan, Candylou, max2013, BMSH, drogorath, Cherylann Rivers, and t4swp for your reviews!_

**Chapter VI**

**Intruder**

There had been some long days for Fenton in the past, but none were quite so long as that Tuesday. It was two days after the shooting. His family had been threatened. He couldn't even go and see them. He himself had nearly been locked up by a mob boss. It appeared that a mob war could break out at any moment. His FBI contact had taken off to another state. And not one single lead had paid off so far.

That was why he didn't allow himself to feel too hopeful when Alex Casey knocked on the door to his office late that evening.

"Casey," he greeted him. "I hope you have something to report."

"You might have to qualify that," Alex said, a shimmer of humor in his voice in spite of everything. "I've got something to report: that I have nothing to report. I feel like I must have talked to every Giovanni Beretta in the country, and that's not even counting all the ones that the rest of my team have talked to. None of them have an estranged brother named Nico."

"I thought you were going to try 'John Beretta' next," Fenton reminded him.

"Right. We've started in on that. No luck so far. We'll let you know if that changes." Alex wrinkled his forehead. "Lieutenant, you don't mind me asking a personal question, do you?"

"It depends on what the personal question is," Fenton replied.

"Is something wrong?"

Fenton raised an eyebrow sarcastically. "We're on the brink of a mob war and we're also trying to find the kidnapped parents of three young children with little hope of success. I wouldn't necessarily say that all's right in the world."

Alex almost chuckled, but then he quickly became serious again. "It's just that you seem kind of…I don't know. Worried, maybe? Not quite how you usually are. If you don't mind my saying so, sir."

"It's nothing to worry about, Casey," Fenton said, unwilling to talk about the situation with anyone. He liked Alex well enough, but even if Alex wasn't a mole, he did have infamously loose lips and might give something away by accident.

The conversation was interrupted by Mitch Johnson's arrival. "Lieutenant. Casey." He nodded to each of the men in turn, but despite his formal greeting, he seemed cheerier than he had since Sunday. "I've got good news. I've finally made some progress."

Fenton stood up. "You have? What did you learn?"

"The name of the tattoo artist who did at least one of those rose tattoos," Mitch reported. "He's got a little shop and so I gave him the name of the one Rose guy that we have identified, Robert Hatch, you remember. He says he did that tattoo for him about three months ago."

"Great," Fenton said. "Let's go there and check his records. We might get the names of some of these other guys."

"I don't know about that," Mitch admitted. "He says Hatch was the only one he's done. I'm not sure I believe him. He seemed scared. Someone might have threatened him not to talk anymore than that. I'm thinking we might need a court order to look at his records."

"But he told you about Hatch," Fenton pointed out. "If he had been threatened, why would he do that?"

"Good question," Mitch agreed. "Anyway, his name's, apparently, Odin Hannigail."

"Odin," Fenton repeated. "Well, okay. Let's go get that court order and then get down there." He was about to rush out of the office, but then he remembered the time. "It's past eight o'clock. I guess even Norse gods close up their shops at some point, not to mention there aren't too many judges who will be happy with being bothered this late. I guess it will have to wait until tomorrow."

HBHBHBHBHB

Wednesday morning was bleak and sprinkling rain. Laura and the boys were all starting to go stir-crazy in their little prison. Finally, Laura decided that there could be no harm in venturing out for a walk. In all the crowds of New York City, the chances of anyone spotting them were slim. Moreover, the rainy weather gave them a perfect excuse to bundle up and decrease their chances of being recognized even more.

"Come on, boys, let's go get some ice cream," she invited them.

"Ice cream!" Frank repeated in excitement.

The prospect of actually going out of doors had both boys so thrilled that they could hardly wait for Laura to put their boots and coats on. Laura pulled the hoods up for all three, and they started out. There was a little ice cream shop a couple of blocks away, and so they headed toward that.

The shop was mostly empty when they entered, apart from a trio of employees and a handful of customers. Frank and Joe ran up to the counter to look at the different flavors of ice cream in the clear-lidded freezer.

"Which one do you want?" Laura asked them.

"Bubblegum!" Joe said.

"You can't have bubblegum until you're older," Laura told him. "How about chocolate?"

Joe shook his head. "No. Bubblegum."

"I want that one." Frank pointed at the tub of strawberry.

"I want, too," Joe said, evidently forgetting about the bubblegum.

"Okay." Laura turned to the teenage boy behind the counter. "Two cups of strawberry ice cream." She figured that neither boy would finish his entire cup of ice cream, and so she would have to clean it up anyway. Besides that, she would be much too busy trying to keep as much ice cream off clothes and fingers as possible that she wouldn't have time to eat a cup of her own.

They sat down at a booth in the corner where Laura would have a clear view of anyone coming into the shop. They had been there about ten minutes when someone came in whom Laura recognized: Danielle Harbinger. Danielle spotted her right away.

"Hi, Laura. Haven't seen you in a long time. Say, what are you doing in this part of town?"

"Oh, well…" Laura stammered. She knew she wasn't supposed to tell anyone where she was staying, but lying didn't come naturally to her. "Just out and about, you know."

Danielle gave her a skeptical look. "It's not a very nice day to be out and about, and there are some much better ice cream places closer to where you live. No offense to the people running this place."

"Well…" Laura decided to get the conversation away from herself. "What are you doing here then? Shouldn't you be at work?"

"I had to take a break." Danielle instantly looked more tired. "You can only spend so much time in a lab before you start feeling like you're going crazy. Anyway, I came down here to get some ice cream and be alone for a little while. I figured it wouldn't be too busy on a day like this."

"Are you making much progress on the case?" Laura asked hopefully.

"No, not really. It's the weirdest thing. It's pretty tough to be completely anonymous in this day and age of cameras everywhere, but I can't find a thing on those other two guys. But this probably isn't the place to talk about the case."

"Right," Laura agreed, although she was disappointed. "Well, if it's all the same to you, I think we'd better be heading home."

She threw away the cups from the ice cream, pulled the boys' hoods up again, and took them by the hand to lead them back out onto the sidewalk. She happened to glance through the window as they were leaving and saw Danielle sit down at a table with a young man and evidently start talking earnestly to him.

"That's funny," she thought, taking note of the man's appearance.

HBHBHBHBHB

It was late morning by the time Fenton and Mitch parked outside Odin Hannigail's tattoo parlor. It was in one of the more unsavory parts of town and was squeezed in between a bar and an ancient used bookstore.

"I never said it was a five-star establishment," Mitch said with a shrug when he noticed the look on Fenton's face.

"That's for sure," Fenton replied, "but that's not what I was looking at. Take a look at the door."

A "Closed" sign hung prominently on the outside of the door.

Mitch pursed his lips. "Well, how do you like that? I must have scared him off."

"Or someone else made sure he wouldn't open today," Fenton said. "We'd better track him down. He's looking like a better lead all the time."

"Right. You want me to hire a PI to do that for us?" Mitch asked with a teasing grin.

"Might not be a bad idea," Fenton returned. "We can always use more manpower. Speaking of the PI, you did hire one, right?"

"I did," Mitch said. "Found one in a little town in Massachusetts. He came with good recommendations, even from the police there. I figured that was a good sign, and we're also not going to have to pay as much travel fees as we would hiring someone from here in the city. His name's Tom Radley. There's just one question about the whole thing. Why do we need to send a private eye to Rockport when Christine Roche is already checking all that out?"

"Just a hunch, I guess," Fenton said. "There's still something I don't like about Agent Roche. Anyway, Radley's completely out of this, so if his report matches up with everything Agent Roche finds, then I'll be willing to concede that she's trustworthy."

"Just so long as Radley doesn't get in her way. Well, what's the plan here? Check out some of the businesses next to here to see if anyone knows where old Odin lives? The bar's closed, so I guess that one's out."

"I think first we should try the phonebook," Fenton said. "I know there are a lot of people in this city, but there can't be too many named Odin Hannigail."

"We can only hope so," Mitch replied.

There was a phone booth nearby on the corner, and Fenton walked down to it. He took out the phonebook and turned to the H section. Within a few minutes, he had found one listing for Odin Hannigail. The address was only a few minutes away, and the two officers drove straight there. At least, they started to.

They had only gone a couple of blocks when the cell phone from Christine started ringing. Fenton answered it.

"This is Agent Roche," Christine identified herself. "I'm here in Rockport. Apparently, this group that Gregorio has gotten in with spends a lot of time here in Rockport. I figured out why yet. However, I think I have picked up a lead about Nico and Mattea Beretta."

"What's that?" Fenton asked.

"I found a guy with that rose tattoo. He wasn't willing to talk. I think this group, whoever they are, makes it clear that they don't take kindly to snitches. However, when I dropped the name Beretta, he stopped short. I'm sure it was familiar to him, but whether it's the same Beretta or not, I don't know."

"Interesting," Fenton said. "If we could just find Giovanni Beretta, he would probably be able to clear some things up for us. If I get the time, I'll join in on that search myself. Thanks for telling me. Is there anything else?"

"No," Christine replied. "I'll let you know if there is later."

Fenton hung up the phone and turned to Mitch. "Let's hurry and talk to Odin. I'm afraid he might have a more serious reason for not opening the shop than just that you scared him."

A few minutes later, Mitch had parked in front of the apartment building where the phonebook indicated that Odin Hannigail lived. His apartment was on the fourth floor and the hallways were a little confusing, so it took the detectives some time to find the apartment.

Fenton knocked on the door. There was no sound from inside. Then, on a hunch, Fenton tried the doorknob. It turned and the door opened a crack.

"That's never a good sign," Mitch commented.

Fenton pushed the door open the rest of the way and then shuddered. Mitch let out a low whistle. The body of a man was lying on the floor. From his pallid face, blood-soaked shirt, and rigid limbs, it was clear that he was dead.

"Call for backup," Fenton ordered Mitch, before proceeding forward to examine the body.

The man had been young, probably younger than Fenton. His dark hair had been cut short and he had a beard and mustache. Both arms were covered in sleeve tattoos and a partial tattoo showed above the collar of his shirt. If this was Odin Hannigail, which seemed likely, none of that was too unexpected. What did surprise Fenton was that the man was holding a single black rose in his hand.

Fenton bent down to take a closer look at it. The hand wasn't clasped around it, so it had probably been put there after the victim had been killed, which meant it was probably the calling card of the killer. That made sense, after all, since Odin had most likely been murdered because he had let out a little information on the rose tattoos.

"I've got some more people coming," Mitch said, crouching next to Fenton. "Looks I messed this one up big time. If we'd been quicker about getting the court order…"

"I don't think we would have been in time," Fenton told him. "It's hard to say until the medical examiner has looked at him, but I'd guess he's been dead for quite a few hours already. It probably happened last night."

"Someone must have heard the shot," Mitch said. "We should talk to the neighbors, see if we can pin down a time. What's that?" He noticed the rose.

"I think it's someone letting us know why he was killed."

"Pretty audacious of them," Mitch observed. "Or of him, I should say. It's looking more and more like Gregorio is back of this all the time."

"Whoever killed him probably destroyed all the records he had of those tattoos, but we might as well look for them," Fenton said. "He might have hidden them somewhere in his apartment rather than the store, especially after you were asking about them. Let's look." He stood up, but Mitch remained crouched next to the body, staring at him in some sort of contemplation. "Hey, come on. Let's not waste any more time."

"Just give me a minute here." Mitch let out a long breath. Then he stood up. "It's pretty obvious now that this gang uses a black rose as an identifier. How hard have you looked into that?"

"I've been looking into it. No matches on it yet. But let's take a look around."

A thorough search of the apartment revealed no trace of any records. Several detectives were also sent down to Odin's shop, only to find all the records there stolen and the computer smashed. As for the murder, no clues turned up. The neighbors insisted that they hadn't heard a thing or seen anyone going into the apartment. Even the forensics and ballistics reports yielded nothing, save that Odin had been killed with a .22 caliber handgun at point-blank range. The markings on the bullet didn't match any other bullets on record.

As soon as he had returned to the precinct, Fenton had had a message that Laura had tried to call him earlier. Since Laura had said in the message that it was no emergency, Fenton didn't take time to return her call until the reports were in and the investigation had once again slowed down.

"Is everything okay?" Laura asked before telling him about her own observations. She noticed the heaviness in his voice.

"We're starting to make some progress in the case, I think, but it's looking like it will still be awhile," Fenton replied. "Is everything okay with you and the boys?"

"Yeah, well, I did something that probably wasn't too smart," Laura admitted. "I took the boys out for ice cream this morning, just for a little while. I don't think anyone would have recognized us, except we happened to run into Danielle Harbinger. I wouldn't have thought anything of that, except that she said that she had needed to take a break and have a few minutes to herself, but then, the minute we left, she sat down with a man and started talking to him. It just seemed a little strange."

"It does," Fenton agreed. "Can you describe the man?"

"He was African American and he had his hair shaved really short. He was wearing a dark green jacket, I think, and he was sitting down so I couldn't really see how tall he was or what else he was wearing. I just got a glimpse."

"Okay. I'll look into it."

After a few more minutes of conversation, Fenton reluctantly said that he had to get back to work. He had no sooner hung up the phone than Mitch came into his office without bothering to knock.

"I've got some good news. Finally," Mitch announced. "I think I've found Giovanni Beretta."

"Really?" Fenton asked. "You weren't even assigned to look for him."

"I know," Mitch said. "But I had a few spare minutes, and I figured might as well spend them doing something worthwhile. I remembered Laura's suggestion about maybe he's going by John, so I did a little looking and I found a John Beretta who is a student at Our Lady of Good Counsel Seminary in Boston. I spoke to the rector there, and he said that their John is, indeed, actually named Giovanni even though he goes by John and he's from New York City and he's going to call me back when he can find out about the rest."

"That sounds good," Fenton said. "How did you find him?"

"Well, it wasn't too hard, honestly…" Mitch began, but he was interrupted by the phone ringing.

Fenton picked it up. "Lieutenant Hardy speaking."

"Hey, um, Fenton? This is Lucy Walters down the hall from your apartment, you know?"

"Right," Fenton said, a dread falling on him. He had asked a few of his neighbors whom he knew fairly well to keep an eye on his apartment and let him know if anyone came there. "Is someone at my apartment?"

"I think so," Lucy replied. "I didn't actually see them, but I heard them. They knocked on the door, and I'm pretty sure I heard them go in."

"Okay. I'll be right there."

Fenton and Mitch didn't waste any time in driving to the Hardys' apartment building. They paused in front of the door, listening for any sounds from within. For several minutes, all was silent. Then they heard a door close. Fenton nodded to Mitch, and both men drew their guns. Then Fenton unlocked the door and threw it open. The detectives stepped into the doorway, their guns pointed forward, and shouting an order to freeze. There was a long, loud scream from within.


	7. A New Strategy

J.M.J.

_Author's note: Happy St. Valentine's Day! Thanks for reading! Thank you especially to everyone who reviewed the last chapter: Candylou, max2013, ErinJordan, BMSH, and Cherylann Rivers! Congratulations to Candylou for figuring out what was going on at the end of the last chapter! _;) _In answer to BMSH's question: yes, it is supposed to be Tom Radley. The connection to Sam will be explained in the next chapter. Enjoy!_

**Chapter VII**

**A New Strategy**

Fenton lowered his gun as he recognized the screaming intruder in his apartment. "Gertrude?" he asked in disbelief, suddenly recalling something that he had forgotten several days earlier in all the excitement.

Gertrude Hardy regained somewhat of her composure. "Fenton Hardy, what on earth is the idea? First, neither you nor Laura is there at the airport when I come in. Then neither of you answer your phone so I have to take a taxi here – and let me tell you, that was not cheap. I get to your apartment and no one's even here. Thank goodness I have that spare key you gave me. And now you come busting in here like you think I'm a murderer or something."

"In my defense," Fenton replied, failing in his attempt to stifle a grin, "I did think you were a murderer."

That answer didn't seem appease Gertrude much. "What do you mean by that? Where are Laura and the boys?"

"They're at a hotel," Fenton told her, holstering his gun once again, which he had almost forgotten he was holding. He glanced at Mitch, who was grinning now that he realized that the "intruder" was Fenton's sister.

"In other words, someone's been threatening you," Gertrude deduced. "I should have known. If I've told you once, I told you a thousand times, detective work is no business for a family man."

"Yeah, I know. You've mentioned that before. Sorry, Gertrude. Something pretty big has come up and I completely forgot that you were coming to visit. You should have called the precinct."

"I did," Gertrude said. "I called several times, actually, and every time I was told you were out. So, what exactly is going on? What kind of a case is it this time?"

"Let's not talk about it here. We can go on down…" Fenton paused in mid-sentence as he noticed something on the kitchen cupboard that had certainly not been there when he had last left the apartment. It was a bouquet of black roses in a vase. "What is that?"

Gertrude glanced at the flowers. "That's what I was wondering. I was wondering if maybe Laura's taste in flowers had taken a serious turn for the worse."

Fenton approached the vase cautiously, as if he was afraid that the flowers themselves would do him some harm. He noticed a card attached to them and picked it up to look at it. It read: "Forget the Beretta case unless you want your wife and sons to end up like Hannigail."

He showed the note to Mitch, who whistled. "Well, this seals it that the two cases are related."

Gertrude peered over his shoulder. "What's that supposed to mean? Who's Hannigail?"

"Mitch, you call for Dr. Harbinger to come here," Fenton said instead of answering Gertrude's question. "Have her bring a team. We need them to analyze these flowers and this card. Also try to figure out how the intruder got in here. I'll take Gertrude and go check on Laura and the boys. I don't want to call them either from here or the cell phone because either could be bugged."

Mitch nodded. "Don't worry about a thing. I'll take care of it."

Fenton gestured for Gertrude to follow him. "Come on. I'll explain on the way."

Gertrude had dozens of questions for her brother as they drove from the apartment to the hotel, even though Fenton was explaining things thoroughly. She never liked to admit just how much of an interest she had in her brother's detective work. She knew the dangers well – few people were more aware of it than she and Fenton – and she didn't want to encourage him in case there would ever be hope of Fenton adopting another line of work. On the other hand, the dangerous and the difficulties only made her that much more interested in the whole. When she was being very honest with herself, she had to admit that she was proud of her younger brother, especially in consideration of everything that had happened.

When they reached the hotel, Laura didn't waste any time in answering the door. From the look on her face, it seemed she had been frightened but was trying her best to pretend otherwise for the sake of the boys. "Fenton, I've been trying to call you at the precinct. I'm so glad you came. And, Gertrude, I'm so sorry. I completely spaced it off that you were coming."

"It sounds like you have every right to," Gertrude replied. "You poor thing."

"What happened, Laura?" Fenton asked.

"Well…" She glanced at the boys, who were both asleep on one of the beds. "Let's talk quietly. I don't want to wake them up."

The trio was standing in front of the door, as they had entered immediately to reduce the chances of anyone spotting them in the hall.

"About half an hour ago, someone knocked at the door," Laura explained. "I looked through the door viewer, but no one was there. I waited a minute or two, and then I looked out. There was no one in the hall at all, but I found that lying in front of the door." She pointed at the sink, which was just outside the bathroom door. Lying on the counter next to it was a single black rose.

Fenton's face became a shade paler. "Then somehow they figured out where you are. I'm sure no one followed us when we brought you here. How did they figure it out?"

"You don't suppose Danielle told someone that she had seen us in this area and then they figured it out from there?" Laura asked.

"It's possible," Fenton admitted, although he didn't much care for the possibility. "Come on. I'm going to take all four of you down to the precinct and we'll figure it out from there."

HBHBHBHBHB

After returning to the precinct and talking over the issue for nearly an hour with Mitch, once he had returned, there were two points that were perfectly clear, although they were, unfortunately, the only two points that they had. The first was that the only person besides the Hardys and Mitch who knew even the general location where Laura and the boys had been hidden was Dr. Danielle Harbinger. Both Fenton and Mitch were certain that they had not been followed when they had taken Laura and the boys to the hotel, and it only took a simple check to ascertain that Fenton's phone had not been bugged. The information about their whereabouts had to have been leaked through her somehow. The second point was that someone had found out about Odin Hannigail talking to the police, and Alex Casey had been in the room when Mitch had told Fenton about it.

"So, it's looking like chances are good that it's one of those two," Fenton concluded. "It's also possible they both might have just mentioned these things to the wrong person, but either way, I think it's time to have a talk with them."

"And what are Laura and the boys and me supposed to do in the meantime?" Gertrude asked. "You can't expect us to just keep sitting around this police station until you figure out this case."

"No," Fenton admitted gloomily. "Honestly, I don't know what to do there." He glanced at Laura, silently asking her for ideas.

"We can find another hotel," Laura promptly said. "We'll be more careful and they couldn't…"

"But they already did," Gertrude protested. "And if Fenton is right that one of his own officers is working for these mobsters, we won't be safe anywhere in this city. The only thing we can do is leave town for a little while."

Laura shook her head. "I'm not leaving the city. I'm not leaving Fenton alone."

"Which is precisely what he'll be if those mobsters find you again," Gertrude pointed out.

"You know," Mitch interjected, "I think she's right. Until we've got Gregorio behind bars, at least, this place isn't safe. I have an idea. I think Agent Roche has proven herself reliable. There's no real reason to suspect that she isn't exactly who she says she is, and anyway, some of the information that's been passed along to this black rose outfit, she couldn't have possibly known. So, I say let her handle Rockport alone. We'll call Tom Radley back, and he can act as a sort of bodyguard for the women and the boys."

"I don't want a bodyguard," Laura protested, while at the same time Gertrude said, "That's an excellent idea. Where does this Tom Radley live?"

"A little place called Bayport," Mitch told her.

"Perfect." Gertrude nodded in satisfaction. "I've never heard of it, so maybe these mobsters haven't either. We'll get a hotel there and have your Mr. Radley keep an eye on our door. He's not too young of a man, is he? I wouldn't want to put our lives in the hands of someone inexperienced."

"Um, no, he's not too young," Mitch said. "As a matter of fact, he's in his mid-fifties."

"Oh." A shade of disappointment passed over Gertrude's face. "Well, I hope he isn't too old, then. He won't be much help if he has arthritis and can't move much."

Mitch tried his best to suppress a grin. "You know, it could be plain, dumb optimism on my part, wanting to think I can stay young and healthy as long possible, but I don't think a guy in his fifties is quite ready for the nursing home."

"It doesn't matter, though," Laura broke in, "because I'm not going. I'm staying right here where I belong."

"Don't be ridiculous, Laura," Gertrude said. "It would be bad enough if it was just you that you had to think of, but there's the boys, too. You're not going to let them stay here, are you?"

Laura glanced at the two boys, who were, thankfully, paying no attention to the adults' conversation. They were sitting on the floor, playing with their toy dinosaurs that they had brought. "I don't know what to do," she confessed, her eyes growing a little watery.

Fenton sighed. "I don't like the idea of you being out there without me any better than you do, Laura, but I think they're right. We do need to think of the boys, first and foremost."

"Yeah," Laura admitted, albeit a little weakly. Then she burst out, "Why can't they just leave us alone? You're only doing your job."

"I don't think that argument would convince them," Mitch said.

"Besides, if Fenton just had a different job…" Gertrude began, but Fenton raised his hand to stop her.

"Not right now, Gertrude," he requested wearily. "I think we all know what we need to do, even if we don't want to do it."

There wasn't much more to add to the conversation. Mitch went to work trying to get hold of Tom Radley, but the detective didn't answer his phone. Fenton collected himself, and then asked Danielle Harbinger to come and see him in his office.

"Have you made any progress on those black roses?" Fenton asked her.

"Yes, I have," Danielle replied. "I was about to come and report to you, anyway. So, first off, there are no naturally-occurring black roses. What people usually mean when they talk about a black rose is either a very dark purple rose or a white rose that has been dyed black. These flowers, both the ones from the apartment and the ones from the hotel are the latter. My team's working on isolating the exact type of dye that was used. Once we have that, we might be able to trace where it was bought and who bought it."

"Excellent," Fenton told her. "How ID'ing those last two shooting victims."

"No luck," Danielle admitted. "We've completed the facial reconstructions, so we know what they looked like now. There's absolutely nothing on them. Even the FBI has no records whatsoever of these two. It's like they just appeared out of nowhere."

"Weird," Fenton said. "That's not an easy thing to accomplish. Could have they done plastic surgery to alter their appearances?"

Danielle shook her head. "There was no trace of anything like that. We've tried just about everything. Dental records, fingerprints, DNA, nothing yet."

"Okay." Fenton acted as if the interview was at an end, but then he added, as if it was an afterthought, "Say, Laura mentioned that she ran into you earlier at the ice cream shop."

For an instant, Danielle's face froze. Then she tried to smile. "Yeah. That was a coincidence." She seemed to realize that her attempt to play it cool hadn't worked, because she then added, "About that, Lieutenant, I didn't realize that she and the boys were supposed to be in hiding. If I had known, I wouldn't have mentioned it to anyone. You don't think that's how this gang found them, do you?"

"That depends on who you mentioned it to," Fenton replied.

"Just Casey," Danielle said. "Surely he wouldn't have passed on the information to the gang?"

"I don't know," Fenton admitted. "But there is someone else who knew: that man you were meeting there. Who was he? A secret boyfriend or a secret contact?"

Danielle looked pained. "Neither. I was wondering if Laura had seen that. He's my cousin, Jackson Hart. You can check on it if you want. He had a good job up until a couple of weeks ago when the company he was working for went broke. He's been trying to find a new job, and I've been helping him out until he can. He's embarrassed about it, though. He doesn't want everyone to think he can't hold a job, so he wants me to keep it quiet. He has absolutely no ties to any criminals. Like I said, you can check on it."

Fenton nodded slowly, trying to decide whether to believe her or not. "Okay. Thanks, Dr. Harbinger. I will check, just to be thorough. If you see Casey, tell him I want to see him, and don't tell him why."

As Danielle was leaving, Fenton's phone rang and he answered it. It was the front desk trying to get hold of Mitch, who evidently had a phone call.

"He's not in here," Fenton told the officer. "Have you tried his office?"

"Yeah," Officer Nicholson replied. "I'll see if I can track him down. The person seems pretty insistent to talk to him right away."

Fenton hung up, not giving the incident much thought. He briefly tried to call Christine Roche to see whether she had any news, but she didn't answer. Then he went to look for Alex Casey, but he learned that the other detective was out on a call. Finally, he started digging into Danielle Harbinger's files to see what he could learn about her cousin.

He had barely begun when Mitch came bursting into the office saying, "Great news!"

"There was a call for you at the front desk," Fenton told him. "Did you get it?"

"I sure did," Mitch replied. "The John, Giovanni, whatever, Beretta I found is the one we're looking for. I talked to him briefly, but I didn't want to tell him too much over the phone. With this whole potential mole issue, you can never tell just how private your conversations are around here. I told him we'd go and talk to him in person."

"'We'?" Fenton repeated. "Didn't you say he was in Boston?"

"Yeah," Mitch confirmed, "but I've got this all planned out. It's perfect. I finally got hold of Tom Radley, and he's willing to go along with our plan, and Bayport is on the way to Boston. I checked. So basically, we can take your family over to Bayport on our way to Boston. You know, you getting out of town for a day or so might not be such a bad idea, either."

In the end, Fenton agreed to go along with the plan, although it wasn't Mitch who persuaded him. First of all, he wanted to make sure that his wife, sons, and sister would all be in good hands during their sojourn in Bayport. Secondly, he had a hunch that somehow he would get a lead in Massachusetts.


	8. Bayport

J.M.J.

_Author's note: Thanks for reading! Special thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter: Candylou, ErinJordan, BMSH, max2013, MargaretA66, t4swp, FanHB08, and Cherylann Rivers!_

**Chapter VIII**

**Bayport**

The Hardys were on the road first thing in the morning. Fenton had left Mitch Johnson in New York to deal with anything that came up there on the case while he was gone, although Fenton didn't expect to be away longer than overnight. Laura still wasn't particularly favorable about going to stay in Bayport, but she accepted the situation as she realized it was for the best for Frank and Joe. Only Gertrude seemed to actually be content with the solution to the problem.

It was mid-morning when they reached Bayport. The highway was following along the coast, and the town was tucked back on the shores of Barmet Bay, a horseshoe-shaped inlet. Most Bayporters agreed that the view of the town from the north was more impressive, but to someone who had never been there before and was approaching from the south, that view did not disappoint. The morning light was reflecting off the waters of the bay, which was still in sight as the Hardys entered the town. It was a small town, but certainly not lifeless. There were people walking up and down the sidewalks and chatting at street corners. The businesses were small and locally owned, for the most part, and very well-kept up, and many of the houses were old and impressive. There was even, on the hill overlooking the town so that it was visible from almost any given spot in Bayport, a mansion with two towers, giving it the impression of a castle.

"What an adorable town!" Laura said, looking around her as they drove. Just the sight of the small town and its distance from the city and its problems lightened her heart more than it had been for the last several days.

"Staying here won't be so bad," Gertrude added, nodding in satisfaction.

Fenton smiled a little to himself. Already Bayport was reminding him very much of his hometown of Northrop. A part of him almost wished he was staying here, too – at least, he would want to stay here if there was no mystery to solve back in New York. Maybe, after this case was cleared up…But there would be time enough to think about that later.

Tom Radley had given good directions to his house, and Fenton was able to drive straight there. The doorbell was opened by a young man of about twenty or twenty-one.

"Hi," he said, looking the group on his doorstep over quickly. "Can I help you?"

"Is this Tom Radley's house?" Fenton countered.

"Yes," the young man replied. "Lieutenant Hardy?"

Fenton nodded. "This is my wife, Laura, my sister, Gertrude, and my sons, Frank and Joe."

"We've been expecting you." The young man stepped back to let the family enter. "My name's Sam. This is my dad, Tom." He gestured to an older man, who was standing in the living room which the door opened into.

Tom and Sam shook hands with each of the adult Hardys. "It's good to meet you. Sorry it can't be under better circumstances. You ladies probably want to go ahead and get settled in at your hotel. I've booked you a suite at the Westland. It's a nice place. My son, Sam, will help me in making sure no one bothers you."

"Do you have much experience in this kind of work, Sam?" Fenton asked.

"Some," Sam replied. "Ever since I graduated high school, Dad's been letting me help him with his cases. I'm going to join him full-time once I finish college."

That was satisfactory, and so the group headed to the Westland Hotel. The Radleys had booked the room directly across the hall from the Hardys' room for themselves, and one or the other of them would stay there at all times. They would also accompany the women any time they left the hotel.

As for the suite itself, it was much more spacious than the room in the New York hotel had been, and while it didn't quite escape the stiff appearance of a hotel room, it still managed to be homier than most. Better still, the two queen-sized beds were each in a separate alcove in the room, which would give the two women a little bit of privacy in their cramped quarters, or at least as much privacy as one can have when sharing a room with two toddlers. Both Laura and Gertrude approved of the accommodations.

"It's much nicer than I was expecting," Laura said. "It's not too expensive, is it?"

Tom grinned. "Ordinarily, it would be out of my price range, for sure, but my brother-in-law owns this place. He gives me a good deal if he's not booked up anyway."

The Radleys went across the hall then and left the Hardys to get settled in. It wasn't easy for Fenton to leave his family there, but there was no choice. At least, this time, it would only be for a few hours, as Fenton intended to come back to the hotel to stay the night when he had finished talking to Giovanni Beretta in Boston.

After Fenton had left, Laura went to the window and looked out. The suite was on the second floor, and since the hotel was on a corner, she could see quite a ways down the street. It was sunny and far too nice a day to spend indoors.

"Let's go and look around for a while," she suggested.

"Really, Laura," Gertrude protested. "There are mobsters after you and you want to go traipsing around a strange town?"

Laura gave an almost annoyed sigh. "I don't think there are any mobsters lurking around in a place like this. Besides, we have our two bodyguards. We'll be perfectly safe. I at least want to stretch my legs a little."

Without giving Gertrude the opportunity to protest any further, Laura went across the hall and knocked on the Radleys' door. She asked the men if they would accompany them on a walk around town, and the men agreed without any qualms.

Frank and Joe were also excited about going out, although Joe wasn't too pleased when Laura insisted that he hold her hand the entire time. It was such a relief to be out and about that even Frank tried to run off once or twice. Fortunately, Tom was more than willing to chase after him if he wandered too far ahead, and even managed to keep his attention by telling him some clearly exaggerated accounts of his sleuthing adventures.

"Are you sure you want to be a detective after you graduate?" Gertrude asked Sam as they walked along. "It's a very dangerous profession. I don't see why Fenton ever took it up."

Sam couldn't help grinning, although he tried to sound sympathetic as he said, "Yeah. Definitely dangerous. Your brother must be pretty good at what he does, though."

"He's one of the best detectives in this country," Gertrude declared proudly, but then she quickly added, "But that's not the point. The point is that he has a family to take care of and how's he going to do that, risking his life on a daily basis?"

"I guess there's just some things worth risking your life for," Sam replied.

Gertrude shook her head. "Maybe, but I say let the single people handle it. You're not planning on getting married, are you?"

Sam reddened a little. "Well, actually, I'm engaged."

"How wonderful!" Laura broke in. "What's her name?"

"Ethel. I know, her parents are pretty old-fashioned. We're waiting until we both graduate from college next year to get married. We're going to stay here in Bayport, though, and I'm going to work with my dad, like I said. Ethel is studying nursing and she's hoping to get a job at the hospital here in town."

Tom put an arm around his son's shoulders. "I have two older children than Sam, a son and a daughter. They both moved away just as soon as they graduated from college, one to Orlando and the other to San Diego. It'll be nice to have one kid stick around. Bayport's a good place to live and raise a family."

"I'm sure it is," Laura commented thoughtfully.

"Dad," Sam protested, "you know all of that is still a couple of years down the road, right?"

They were walking through a residential district as they talked. It was a well-kept, neat neighborhood, and several people stopped to say hello to the Radleys as they walked. Even the driver of one of the passing cars honked his horn and waved to the detective and his son.

They were at the corner of High and Elm Streets when one house in particular caught Laura's eye. It was an old-fashioned, two-story house with ivy growing on the porch and trees shading the yard. It was on a bigger lot, and there was a barn standing next to it. No doubt, the barn had once been used to store hay and chickens, but it had now been refitted with a garage door so that it could store two cars. A "for sale" sign stood right out in front of it.

"Oh!" Laura involuntarily stopped to look at it.

Tom stopped as well. "Nice place, isn't it? An older couple have been living there, but they decided they don't like the New England winters. They're moving down to Florida. It's a shame, really. They've been in the community for years and raised five kids in that house. They don't want a lot of money for the house, but they're being kind of picky about who they sell it to. It must be hard, thinking about someone else living in their home, someone that it would just be a house to."

"I don't know," Laura replied, gazing almost wistfully at the house. "I think a place like that could feel like home pretty fast."

HBHBHBHBHB

It was still before noon when Fenton parked his car in front of Our Lady of Good Counsel Seminary. It looked like a mix of a monastery and a university with its cluster of tall, old, impressive buildings around a central lawn which had statues connected by various walkways. A sign pointed the way to the main office, and Fenton headed in that direction.

The rector of the seminary, a priest a little way past middle age named Monsignor Willis, was expecting him to arrive around this time and was waiting for him in the office along with a young man who was clearly of Italian descent. Monsignor Willis stepped forward to shake Fenton's hand as soon as he entered and introduced himself and the young man, Giovanni "John" Beretta.

"I'm glad to meet you both," Fenton said politely. "I'm sorry about the circumstances." He watched Giovanni closely as he said this. The young man was in about his mid-twenties and he was already dressed in clerics. From his downcast attitude, it was clear that he was deeply troubled by his brother's situation.

Monsignor Willis glanced at Giovanni before he said, "It's a terrible thing. I don't suppose there could be any doubt?"

Fenton shook his head. "Of course, it's still possible that your brother and sister-in-law might have left of their own accord, Mr. Beretta. Their children may have simply misunderstood what was happening. It's not much comfort, though, because it would mean then that they abandoned three young children."

"No," Giovanni said. "They didn't leave on their own. They wouldn't have abandoned their children. Whatever else they were and did, they wouldn't have done that."

"Are you sure?" Fenton asked. "I understand it's been a while since you've spoken to them."

Giovanni sighed. "Yeah. More than three years. Honestly, I've never met Isabella. I didn't even know whether they were having a girl or a boy. All that aside, some things don't change. Nico thought, in his twisted way, that he was doing what he was doing for his kids. That was the driving force behind it; that his kids wouldn't have to grow up poor like we did. They would have never abandoned them."

Fenton allowed himself a slight frown. "So you knew that your brother was involved with the mobs?"

Giovanni looked down at his hands before he looked up again and said definitely, "No. I didn't know that. I knew he was mixed up in something illegal, but I didn't know it was that serious."

Fenton watched him thoughtfully. "If you knew about this, why didn't you do anything about it?"

Giovanni sighed. "I tried. I tried everything I could think of: reasoning with him, begging him, pleading with him, threatening him, praying, obviously. I don't know what more I could have done."

"You could have come to the police," Fenton pointed out.

"Yeah," Giovanni admitted, "but I didn't have anything solid enough for that. Besides, would have you, Lieutenant?"

Fenton wasn't sure how he would answer that question. After taking a moment to think about it, he said, "Well, that's beside the point, anyway. The point is that you're the closest relative we can find, and provisions must be made for those kids. Are there any other relatives that you know of?"

"No," Giovanni said. "Not in this country, anyway. Our parents died several years ago and we didn't have any other close relatives. And then Mattea was born in Italy and came here on her own, so all of her family still lives over there."

"In that case, you would be the children's guardian," Fenton concluded, "which I'm sure poses a bit of a problem for you."

"Yeah," Giovanni agreed. "Still, the most important thing is taking care of my nephews and niece. Sergeant Johnson told me on the phone that they're in a foster home for now?"

"That's right," Fenton told him. "They're with good people. They're being well taken care of."

"Good," Giovanni said. He glanced at Monsignor Willis before going on. "I'm dropping out of the seminary for this semester, at least, or however long it takes to find out what happened to Nico and Mattea. Permanently, if the worst has happened. I'm still going to need a little bit of time to get a job and find a place to live. There wouldn't be any problem if I found a place here in Boston or, well, anywhere besides New York, would there?"

"No. For that matter, it would probably be better to get those kids out of the city."

"That's what I was thinking," Giovanni said. "Will they be okay with this family until I'm ready for them?"

"Yes, that will be fine," Fenton assured him.

"Good. I do want to go to New York right away and visit them. Are they doing all right? This must be really hard on them."

"I don't know, actually," Fenton admitted. "I haven't seen them myself since Sunday."

They talked for a while longer, until Fenton was satisfied that Giovanni was taking his sudden role as guardian seriously and in stride and that he didn't have any idea who, specifically, his brother had been working with in his illegal dealings.

HBHBHBHBHB

When Fenton returned to Bayport that night, he was met at the door of the hotel suite by Joe running toward him with his arms open, shouting, "Daddy!" Frank wasn't far behind his little brother in giving his dad a huge hug. Laura greeted him with a hug and a kiss.

"It's about time you got back," Gertrude told him. "I was beginning to think those mobsters must have followed you to Boston."

"Not a chance," Fenton assured her. He smiled a bit, knowing that this was the closest Gertrude would come to admitting that she was glad he was back.

"How did it go?" Laura asked.

"Okay," Fenton said. "At least the kids will be taken care of. Giovanni wasn't able to shed any light on what might have happened to his brother and sister-in-law, though."

Laura had other questions, but she glanced at the boys and decided this wasn't the best time just now. That was just as well, because right then, Joe tugged on Fenton's pant-leg and said, "Watch me," before toddling over to one of the plush armchairs in the room.

Fenton scooped him up just as he was trying to climb up into it. "Hold on, there, buddy. You're not thinking about jumping off of there, are you?"

Joe gave him a mischievous smile that clearly meant "yes".

Fortunately, Fenton was able to distract him from his designs by giving him a bouncy piggyback ride which had him squealing with laughter until Gertrude admonished Fenton that everyone else in the hotel would be complaining. It was too late, though, because then Frank wanted a piggyback ride as well.

Laura couldn't help but smile at the roughhousing. It was nice to see her husband playing with their sons. She suddenly felt it keenly just how little time Fenton's work left him for his family. She found herself wistfully thinking over a plan that had been forming in her mind all afternoon.

It wasn't until much later, after the boys and Gertrude had all fallen asleep and Fenton and Laura had curled up on the suite's loveseat that she got a chance to mention it to him.

"Fenton, I know you're tired and maybe this isn't the best time to talk to you about this," she began.

"Uh oh. This sounds serious," Fenton teased.

"It is," Laura assured him. "I know you've been wanting to move for a while. At first, I wasn't so sure, but now after everything that's happened…"

"This isn't how it's always going to be," Fenton told her. "We'll have this case cleared up soon."

"But there will be another one after it. And then another and another." Fenton opened his mouth to say something, so Laura quickly added, "That's okay. I know you're not happy when there's no mystery to solve, and I want you to be happy, even if it does mean a little worrying for me. I wasn't trying to complain about it. What I'm trying to say is that I think you're right. I think we should move. As a matter of fact, I think we should move here."

Fenton chuckled. "You like it that much?"

"I do. We went for a walk today, and somehow it just felt like home. In fact, I saw a house that's for sale. You should see it. I've never really put much thought into a dream house before, but if I had, I think this would be it."

"You must be serious if you're already house-hunting." Fenton grinned.

"It was just an accident that I noticed," Laura admitted. "I don't even know how much the people are asking. It might be way out of our price range. But still, I think we should move, and I think from everything I've seen – which, granted, isn't much – Bayport would be a good place. What do you think?"

"I definitely want to do something different from what we're doing, and a town like this would definitely be safer than New York, but there are some things we need to think about. With my experience, I'm sure there wouldn't be any difficulty in being by the police force here, but it would be a major cut in pay."

"We have some money saved up that we could use for the house, and we wouldn't have to pay rent anymore," Laura pointed out. "Then, too, I could get a job."

"I don't know," Fenton said. "Putting two kids in daycare would probably just about be a wash unless you could find a better job than I would expect to be available in a place like this. Besides, I know how much being home with the boys means to you."

"We would both have to make some sacrifices," Laura agreed, "but I'm willing to do what it takes to make it work." She paused for a few moments. "There is one other possibility," she said finally. "We'd have to think about it and learn more about it, but what if you did what Tom and Sam are doing?"

"You mean, be a private detective?" Fenton asked. "I never really thought of that. I don't know. That might be an even bigger cut in income than switching to a smaller police department. I'd basically have to start my own business."

"I could help with that," Laura said, growing more excited at the prospect. "You could work from home and save the expense of an office. I could do the bookkeeping and answer the phone and all that part of it, which would save you the cost of office help. Even though we would both have to be working hard, at least be working together, and I kind of like the idea of that."

"You know, so do I. Let's do our homework and see just how plausible this idea is."

With that decision made, it would have been nice to just relax and enjoy the moment and try to forget that neither one of them really knew how long it would be until they could hold each other like this again, but that was not to be. The cell phone, which Fenton had set on the stand next to the loveseat began to ring. He groaned, not wanting to answer it, but he recalled Christine Roche's admonition to answer it whenever it rang.

"Sorry," he told Laura as he reached for it. "Lieutenant Hardy speaking."

"Hardy, this is Agent Roche," Christine's voice came over the phone. "I've got something big. Gregorio showed up in Rockport today. I tailed him and recorded him making a deal with another man to bomb one of Alessandro's businesses. It's a front, but some people really do work there. I would have moved in and arrested, but my back-up wasn't there yet. Before it could get there, Gregorio got word of it all, somehow. He's skipped town and is headed back to New York. I need you to set up roadblocks coming into town. All we need to do is catch him at this point, and we'll be able to nail him."

"He'll have to go through Boston and head down the coast, won't he?" Fenton asked.

"Most likely. That's the fastest route."

"I'll call Johnson and have him set up the roadblocks in New York, just in case Gregorio goes a different way," Fenton told her. "I'm in a little town called Bayport myself. If he goes down the coast, it's on the way. I'll see if I can get the police here to set up roadblocks."


	9. The Chase

J.M.J.

_Author's note: Thank you so much for continuing to read this story! Thank you especially to max2013, ErinJordan, Candylou, t4swp, Cherylann Rivers, and Bkworm4life4 for your reviews on the previous chapter! This story is almost to its conclusion. I feel like a small warning might be in order for this chapter. It's a little more violent than my stories tend to be. Not graphic, just kind of violent, so be aware. There's also only one more chapter and possibly an epilogue. It all depends on whether I decide it makes more sense to split the final chapter up so that it deals entirely with winding up the mystery and devote the epilogue to everything else that needs to happen here or if I should just throw it all into one, kind of long chapter. I'll see what I decide. If I do decide to go with an epilogue, I will be posting both the final chapter and the epilogue next week on different days. I'll see you then and enjoy!_

**Chapter IX**

**The Chase**

"Laura, I'm sorry, but I've got to go," Fenton said as he hung up the phone from talking to Christine Roche. "Gregorio Moretti is on his way here, and Agent Roche has enough evidence to charge him. I need to get the police here to set up a roadblock, and if they can catch him…"

"I understand," Laura interrupted. She stood up and practically pushed him toward the door. "Go. There's no time to waste."

Fenton kissed her, and then he grabbed his coat and his wallet and headed out the door. He made for the stairs and started down them. About halfway down the first flight, he ran into Sam Radley.

"Is something wrong, Lieutenant Hardy?" he asked, noticing Fenton's hurried manner.

"No," Fenton told him, "but you might be able to help. Are you on good terms with the police here?"

"Um, yeah," Sam replied, a little confused by the abrupt question.

"Then come on."

Fenton continued on his way down the stairs. Sam hesitated a second or two, but then he followed him. The men climbed into Fenton's car, and on the way to police headquarters, Fenton briefly explained the situation. By the time they reached their destination, Sam was completely on board with the plan.

Being the middle of the night, the police station was quiet as the two men burst in. The officer at the front desk jumped.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

Fenton pulled out his badge and showed it to him. "I'm Lieutenant Fenton Hardy of the NYPD. A wanted suspect is headed in this direction right now with FBI agents pursuing him. We need to get a roadblock set up immediately."

Instantly, the officer pressed a button on the desk and called for his superior to come. Within a few minutes, a captain entered the room and held out his hand to Fenton.

"Captain Collig," he introduced himself. "What's this about a wanted criminal and a roadblock?"

"I'm Lieutenant Hardy of the NYPD," Fenton repeated, showing his badge to Collig as well. "The NYPD and the FBI are working on a case involving organized crime, in particular the Moretti Family."

Collig whistled. "You mean, Alessandro and Gregorio?"

"Yes. Gregorio was followed by an FBI agent to Rockport. He's now believed to be headed toward New York, and will most likely be coming through Bayport on his way. We need to capture him as soon as possible. Sam Radley here can back me up if necessary."

To Fenton's surprise, his statement was met with a chuckle from Collig. "That won't be necessary. Any time Fenton Hardy comes into my police station asking for my help rounding up a notorious gangster who's headed to my town, he doesn't need to ask twice."

"Wait, you know who I am?" Fenton asked.

"I certainly do," Collig replied. "Only twenty-eight and seven years on the force, and you're already a lieutenant with the NYPD with more cases under your belt than I've solved in my entire career? You bet I know who you are. Now, let's get this roadblock set up."

HBHBHBHBHB

Several hours later, Fenton and Sam were sitting in a car on the north side of Bayport, slowly sipping bitter coffee to try to keep from falling asleep. Since Fenton was out of his jurisdiction, he couldn't do much more than sit and watch. Moreover, he was a trifle embarrassed at Collig's eagerness to work with him, though he had to admit it was helpful.

Sam, for his part, was finding the whole situation rather humorous. He hadn't heard of Fenton Hardy until his father had accepted the case that Fenton and Mitch Johnson had offered him and he hadn't realized that Collig's praise for Fenton really wasn't hyperbole. At the same time, he had never seen the typically stoic Collig so excited about anything.

"So," he said finally, shifting himself in his seat in an attempt to wake himself up, "you must be quite the detective for Collig to be so excited."

Fenton's face reddened slightly at the reminder. "I just do my job is all. There's not that much to it."

Sam chuckled. "Collig doesn't usually fawn over somebody like that. I have to say, it sounds like you have a pretty impressive record. How did you happen to become a detective?"

"My dad was a cop," Fenton explained. "It wasn't too hard to decide I wanted to follow in his footsteps. Of course, he was just a regular beat cop in Northrop, Maine, which is a pretty far cry from New York City. That's what I wanted to do, at first, but my superiors decided early on that I had a knack for detective work, and I realized that I liked that better anyway."

"That's funny. I hadn't thought that…Well, it's just that your sister seems so down on detective work, I wouldn't have thought it ran in your family, at least sort of."

"She has her reasons," Fenton said, his voice becoming more downcast. "You see, our dad was killed in the line of duty when I was twelve. She just doesn't want the same to happen to me."

"Wow, I'm sorry," Sam said, not sure what else to say.

"Thanks," Fenton replied. "It's just a difference of opinion, really. So, anyway, how did your dad happen to become a private detective?"

"Oh, that." Sam was more than happy to get on a different subject. "He got kicked out of police academy. Not for doing anything wrong, you've got to understand, it just wasn't a fit. My dad's not one to give up on anything, though. If he'd made up his mind that he was going to be in law enforcement, he was going to do it, one way or another. The way he decided on was being a PI."

Just then, Fenton's cell phone rang. He answered it, and Christine Roche's crisp voice cut him off. "I'm on Gregorio's tail. He's almost to Bayport, but I lost visual on him. If your cops have spike strips, now would be the time to lay them out."

"They already did. I'm sitting here at the roadblock now." Fenton told her. "We're ready for him."

A few minutes passed, and then a pair of headlights became visible, speeding down the steep Shore Road, which had a sheer dropoff on one side and cliff-faces on the other. Fenton tensed. This was it.

Collig came to the window of Fenton's car. "I'm going to need you both to stay put," he said. "I know you're more than capable of handling this situation, Lieutenant, but I don't want anything to go wrong with this arrest."

"Neither do I," Fenton agreed. "I'm not giving Gregorio's lawyers any loopholes to work with."

Within seconds, the headlights were bearing down on the roadblock. Collig and the other Bayport officers took up their positions with their guns drawn behind their cars, while Fenton and Sam were ready to duck if need be since they couldn't help make the arrest.

If Gregorio saw the stake strip, it didn't slow him down much. He sped straight over it, blowing out all four tires and causing his car to swerve crazily as he lost control. The police had purposely chosen a spot at the bottom of Shore Road where the ground was fairly level on either side of the road for this reason. Gregorio managed to stop the car without crashing it, but it had swerved almost out of the circle of police cars.

"This is the police! Come out of the car with your hands up!" Collig ordered through a megaphone.

Rather than heeding Collig's orders, Gregorio bailed out through the opposite door of the car. It was then that Fenton – and Collig, fortunately – realized that Gregorio wasn't alone.

"Hold your fire!" Collig ordered his men. "He's got a kid with him!"

Fenton watched the scene unfold in undisguised dismay. The girl who was with Gregorio was probably around eleven or twelve. She was holding his hand, and Fenton got the impression that she was no hostage but rather had come with Gregorio voluntarily. Gregorio fired several shots at the police as he and the girl ran straight for the line of civilian cars that had been backed up because of the roadblock. It only took Fenton a few seconds to realize what he was planning on doing. He reached for his own door.

"What are you doing?" Sam asked. "I thought we were supposed to stay in the car."

"No time for that," Fenton told him, jumping out.

There was no time to anything more than that. Gregorio reached the first car in line, dragged the driver out while still covering himself with his gun, and then jumped in along with the girl. He whipped the car and raced off to the south.

"After him!" Collig ordered his men, running for his own car as he said it.

Fenton jumped back into the driver's seat and took off before the other police officers could.

"Wha…What are we doing?" Sam asked.

"If Gregorio gets out of Bayport, the police here won't have any more jurisdiction than I do," Fenton said. "We've got to stop him before he gets out of town."

Unfortunately, that was impossible. The streets of Bayport were practically dead at this time of night, and Gregorio was driving like he was in the Indy 500. Fenton was driving as quickly as he dared just to keep him in sight.

It didn't take Gregorio long to race through town and out the other side. As they reached the highway, Fenton didn't slacken speed.

"Are we going to chase him all the way to New York?" Sam asked with some amount of concern.

"If we have to," Fenton told him. He nodded at the cell phone that was sitting on the dashboard. "Take that phone and call the number that's saved in it. It's Agent Roche's. Tell her that Gregorio got through the roadblock and is on the other side of Bayport, headed south. We're on his tail."

Sam followed orders, and after that phone call, Fenton had him call the precinct where Fenton worked out of and have them patch him through to Mitch, whom he warned about the incoming fugitive.

"Collig notified the Massachusetts State Police, so hopefully they'll intercept Gregorio before he reaches New York or he might run out of gas, but if neither happens, there's no way he'll get past the roadblock that the NYPD will have set up," Fenton said as Sam waited to be patched through to Mitch's radio.

Finally, Mitch answered the call, and Sam explained what had happened to him. "Okay," Mitch said. "We've got the roadblock set up, but I'm not there. We have another problem at the moment. Can you let me talk to Lieutenant Hardy?"

"He wants to talk to you," Sam told Fenton.

"Put him on speaker phone," Fenton ordered. After Sam had pressed the button, he went on, "What is it, Johnson?"

"I got a call a couple of hours ago from the foster parents we put the Beretta kids with. Someone came to their house claiming to be a cop and that they needed the kids to make an identification of some suspects that they had picked up. Obviously, it was fake, but the foster parents didn't realize until it was too late."

Fenton flinched. "Did you get a description?"

"Yeah. It doesn't match any descriptions we've got on file of mob associates, but we still know close enough who it was. As they were leaving, the foster mom noticed a tattoo on the would-be cop's neck. That's what tipped her off that he wasn't a real cop."

"Let me guess. A rose."

"Yeah. We've got as many people as we can combing the area. We haven't found anything yet."

"Okay." Fenton gave him the number of the cell phone. "Call me back if you learn anything at all. I'm on my way, but it will be a couple of hours."

Fenton pressed the accelerator a little more, wishing he was in his police car instead of his personal car. Lights and a siren would guarantee that no other cops would try to pull him over on the way. More than that, he wished he could be in the right spot at the right time for once on this case, at least.

"Sorry to have kidnapped you," Fenton told Sam, realizing the awkward position he had put the young man in. "I would drop you off, but I can't afford the time."

Sam shrugged. "That's okay. Getting kidnapped by a famous cop and unexpectedly taken to New York with nothing but the clothes I'm wearing while chasing down gangsters is definitely more interesting that relieving my dad's watch at the hotel like I was going to do when you grabbed me. Anyway, if I wanted to get out, I could have gotten out before the whole roadblock thing."

Fenton was able to keep the suspect's car in sight all the way to New York City. The Massachusetts State Police hadn't caught up with them, and Gregorio's car hadn't run out of gas. Worse still, just as he was approaching the section of the interstate that the police had blocked off, he took an exit.

Fenton groaned. "What's he doing?"

"I think he's trying to get into town another way," Sam replied.

"You don't say. Call the NYPD and Agent Roche again and tell them what happened."

Sam did so, and as he was talking to Agent Roche, he glanced back over his shoulder. "Hey, Agent Roche is right behind us. I guess she caught up."

"Good, but we're still staying on him," Fenton said.

Then the cell phone rang again and Sam answered. "It's Sergeant Johnson again," he reported as he put the phone on speaker again.

"Hardy, I've got some good news," Mitch reported. "We've narrowed it down to where the Beretta kids are being held." He gave the address.

"We're right in that part of town," Fenton told him. "That's probably where Gregorio is headed. If it is, we'll be there in a few minutes. If you think you can wait, don't move until we know for sure."

"We'll hold off as long as we can," Mitch promised. "I'm waiting for backup as it is."

Another phone call to Christine updated her on the situation. Almost by the time Sam had hung up the phone again, Gregorio had reached the corner nearest the address that Mitch had given. There was a stop sign, but obviously Gregorio ignored it.

"Fenton! Stop! There's a car coming!" Sam shouted as Fenton neared the intersection as well.

Fenton slammed on his brakes and spun the wheel, veering out of harm's way just in time. Gregorio wasn't so lucky. He also swerved to try to miss the oncoming car, and instead piled his car into a utility pole. Fenton drew his gun and darted forward as Gregorio crawled out of the damaged car. Gregorio fired a shot at him, and Fenton retreated behind his own car once more while Sam scrambled out to get under cover as well.

Another car pulled up alongside Fenton's and Christine Roche bailed out of it. "Where are your people, Hardy? I thought you said they were here."

"Just Sergeant Johnson, as far as I know," Fenton told her. "More are on the way."

"Meanwhile, we're pinned down by a gunman who has a hostage. Great." Christine bit her lip.

"I don't think the girl's a hostage," Fenton said. "She seemed like she was with him willingly."

"Who is she, then?" Sam asked.

"Maybe she's the reason Gregorio's been hanging out in Rockport," Fenton suggested.

"How so?" Christine asked.

"I'm sure you've kept very close tabs on Gregorio's personal life," Fenton began, "but no offence, you haven't been able to close in on Gregorio's illegal business dealings, which he hasn't even really tried to keep secret. What if she's his daughter, whom he has tried to keep a secret? He could have been hiding her in Rockport with his Black Rose friends keeping watch over her."

"It's possible," Christine admitted. "A child would be a huge liability in his line of business, so he would want to keep her under wraps."

"That doesn't tell us what to do right now," Sam complained. "How long will it take the back-up to come?"

Before Fenton could answer that, there were several shots from around the corner, followed by a shout. Fenton couldn't make out the words, but he knew the voice wasn't Mitch's. Then he saw a little boy come running around the corner of the building.

"Cover me," he requested as he ran over to try to rescue the boy.

"Hardy, get back here," Christine hissed after him as he ran.

Fenton paid no attention. He scooped the boy up and ducked under cover with him in a stairwell just in time.

"Mario, what are you doing here?" he demanded.

"Sorry," the boy replied, making Fenton repent the harshness in his tone as he seemed terrified. "I was trying to get away."

"Of course, you were," Fenton replied more mildly. "What about your brother and sister?"

"They're still inside," Mario told him.

Just then, Christine and Sam came running. "You okay, Hardy?" Christine asked.

"Yeah, we're fine," Fenton told her. "What about Gregorio?"

"While you were making your dash, he decided to make one of his own," Christine replied. "I'm going after him."

"I'm coming, too," Fenton said. "Sam, stay here with Mario."

"And check on the girl in the car, too," Christine told him. "She didn't get out."

Sam nodded as Fenton and Christine hurried off. This whole incident was turning out to be a lot more than he had bargained on, but he realized that the best thing he could do was what he was told. He reached out for Mario's hand.

"Hey, there. This is something else, isn't it?" he said.

"Who are you?" Mario asked.

"My name's Sam. I guess you're Mario?" When Mario nodded, Sam went on, "How about we check on that girl? Let me look first, though, okay?"

Sam looked all around him to make sure there were no gunmen lurking about. Then he led Mario on a quick dash across the street to the disabled car. He found the girl sitting in the front seat. She was conscious, but she had cuts everywhere from the windshield, which Sam now saw was broken, and she was covering her face as she sobbed.

"Who's there? What's happening?" she demanded as she heard Sam and Mario approach, but she didn't take her hands away from her face.

"Hey, it's going to be okay," Sam told her soothingly. "You're gonna be okay. Where are you hurt?"

"My eyes," the girl sobbed. "I can't see anything. I want my daddy. Where is he?"

"I don't know," Sam told her, just as he heard another gunshot.

HBHBHBHBHB

Fenton and Christine parted ways to more effectively look for Gregorio. Fenton went around the building that Mario had emerged from. The first person he met was Mitch, just coming out with the two other Beretta kids in tow.

"Sorry, Fenton," Mitch said. "I couldn't wait any longer. I know I shouldn't have gone in by myself, but Mario decided to make a break for it…"

"Never mind," Fenton interrupted him. "Did you get the kidnappers?"

"Yeah." Mitch dropped his voice so the children wouldn't be able to hear. "They're both dead. I shot one of them in the shoulder. Then the other one shot him and then shot himself."

"Wait, he killed his partner and then himself?"

Mitch nodded and then shook his head. "I guess they thought they were pinned down for good. Fortunately, the kids were in a different room. I don't know what happened to Mario, though."

"He's fine," Fenton told him. "Gregorio slipped away. We've got to catch him."

"Back up would be pretty handy right about now," Mitch grumbled. Without warning, there was a shot from the alleyway nearby. Then Mitch turned to Angelo and Isabella. "Angelo, you stay right here with your sister and do not move. You understand?"

"Yeah," Angelo replied sulkily.

The police officers drew their guns and raced to the alleyway. They were just in time to see Gregorio breathing hard and standing over Christine, who was on the ground. He looked up when he heard them and fired a shot in their direction. Both officers ducked and fired back. Clearly, one of them hit his target, because Gregorio tumbled over, dropping his gun.

Mitch rushed forward and grabbed the gun. Then he bent down to examine Christine. At the same time, Fenton turned his attention to Gregorio, who had been hit in the chest although he was still gasping for breath. Mitch was at his side an instant later.

"Agent Roche?" Fenton asked.

Mitch shook his head. "He must have got the drop on her because he shot her at point blank range."

"Okay, Gregorio," Fenton said, "you don't have much time left. Better make the most of it. Who are these people you're working with."

"Black Rose," Gregorio panted. "They were gonna help me destroy my father. They…they supply the guns, I…" His voice trailed off.

"What about the Berettas?" Mitch interjected. "Where are they?"

"Bottom of the harbor," Gregorio said through gritted teeth. "Nico…lost nerve…informer…"

"Informer?" Fenton asked. "What do you mean? Was Nico an informer?"

Gregorio didn't reply. He took a few more shuddering breaths and then took no more."

Fenton rested his face in his hands. Mitch stood up and swung his fist in an arc as if he was pretending to punch something.

"This is not how I was hoping this would end," he complained. "If only back-up would have gotten here. I don't know what's taking them so long."

Fenton looked up. "Did you call dispatch for back-up?"

"No," Mitch admitted. "I called the command station for the search."

"Let me guess," Fenton said. "Alex Casey was in charge of the command station."


	10. The End of an Era

J.M.J.

_Author's note: Thanks for reading! I've decided to go with an epilogue, so that will be published on Friday while we get the final chapter today. Thank you to Candylou, max2013, MargaretA66, Bkworm4life4, ErinJordan, BMSH, Cherylann Rivers, and t4swp for your reviews on chapter 9!_

**Chapter X**

**The End of an Era**

Even after years of training and experience for this sort of thing, Fenton couldn't keep a tremble out of his knees as he walked from the alley to Gregorio Moretti's disabled car. There was no way to tell yet who had killed Gregorio, whether it was Fenton or Mitch. That was a question that the department shooting board would make sure to answer, though. In some ways, it didn't really matter. They had both been shooting and both held some of the responsibility. Besides that, Fenton was a lieutenant and held a great deal of the responsibility.

He glanced over at Mitch, who looked as shaken as Fenton felt. "You okay?"

"Yeah, it's just…" Mitch let his voice trail off. "We'd better check on those kids and find out if our backup is planning on coming sometime this year." He shuddered. "Fenton, I should have thought…"

Fenton shook his head and raised his hand. "You did the best you could. Even if you had called dispatch for backup, he could have still intercepted it. He could have taken the call himself or sent somebody to the wrong place, and we would have been in the exact same position."

"There's no way he would have gotten away with that," Mitch replied.

"Yeah, well, there's no way he's getting away with what he did do." Fenton clenched a fist. "I'm going to make sure of that."

The car was closer than where they had left Angelo and Isabella, so they went there first. They found Sam crouched next to the open passenger door, trying to comfort the girl inside while Mario clung to him, sobbing. He looked up as the officers approached, but he must have read it in their faces that what had gone down hadn't been good, but that it was over now. He didn't ask any questions.

"We're going to need an ambulance here," he told the newcomers. "I don't think she's hurt too bad, but she's got some glass in her eyes or something."

"Who's there?" the girl asked, gripping Sam's sleeve. "Is it my daddy? I want to talk to Daddy!"

Fenton turned a shade paler as he glanced at Mitch. So this was Gregorio's daughter. Fenton crouched down next to Sam and patted the girl's knee.

"Your daddy can't come right now," he told her. "An ambulance will be here in a few minutes and they'll take to the hospital and they'll take good care of you."

"Who are you?" the girl demanded.

"My name's Fenton. I'm a police officer."

The girl stiffened. "You're the cop who was chasing us. You made us crash!"

"It was an accident," Sam told her.

"My daddy's dead, isn't he? And it's your fault. And I'm going to be blind, and that's your fault, too. All of you."

"Hey, hey, calm down," Fenton said. "You're going to be okay. It's all going to be okay."

The girl's chest heaved with a sob. "Leave me alone! I'd rather die than have you help me! I'd rather die than be blind, too!"

"Fenton, I'm going to go check on the other kids," Mitch said. "Mario, you want to come with me?"

"Good idea, Mitch," Fenton told him. Mario was upset enough already; he didn't need to witness the girl's hysterics, too.

Fenton and Sam continued to try to calm the girl, but she only became more agitated. Finally, to their great relief, an ambulance arrived, along with their long-awaited backup. Fenton made room for the paramedics who came to take care of the girl and turned around, practically running straight into Alex Casey as he did.

"Lieutenant, what happened?" Alex asked. "We got here as quickly as we could, but…"

"I'll bet," Fenton replied. "You're under arrest."

"What?" Alex seemed so genuinely shocked that if Fenton had been only a little less certain, he might have second-guessed himself. As it was, he didn't have much room left for doubt.

"I said, you're under arrest," Fenton repeated. "You have the right to remain silent…"

"What…I…Arrested for what?" Alex interrupted, stammering in his agitation.

Fenton doggedly continued reading him his rights and then asked him if he understood them at the end. For a few moments, Alex continued to splutter around, but when it was obvious that Fenton wasn't going to back down, he finally said, "Of course, I understand my rights. I've only read them to a dozens of people before now. But, Lieutenant, what is this about? You can't arrest me without telling me what it's for."

"Interfering with a police investigation, aiding and abetting, endangering minors, endangering police officers, and probably accepting bribes to begin with," Fenton said. "Hopefully, I'll be able to pin a conspiracy to commit murder charge on you, as well, but we'll have to wait and see what evidence we can turn up on that one."

"Have you lost your mind, Lieutenant?" Alex protested. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"What's going on here?" Officer Brink asked as he approached.

"Put this man in handcuffs, take him down to the precinct, and book him," Fenton ordered.

Brink looked from one officer to the other. In the end, either Fenton's higher rank or his reputation won out because Brink said, "Yes, sir," and placed handcuffs on the still protesting Alex Casey. Before he led him away, he asked, "What are the charges, sir?"

After Fenton had repeated the charges, Alex made one last attempt to protest, "Do you have any evidence for this, Hardy?"

"Yes," Fenton told him in no uncertain terms. "I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't. You know you'll be better off if you make a full confession, Casey, especially on the possible conspiracy charge. Maybe you didn't know Black Rose would kill Odin Hannigail when you told them that we were going to pay him a visit."

Alex's shoulders slumped slightly, but he raised his chin and said, "You don't have any proof of that."

"Get him out of here, Brink," Fenton told the other officer.

As soon as Alex was out of sight, Fenton leaned against one of the parked patrol cars and breathed out a long, heavy sigh. This wasn't at all how he had hoped this mess would turn out. He just needed a minute to process all this.

Long before that minute was up, Mitch approached him, with the Beretta children following behind him. "Say, Lieutenant, I'm going to take these three back to the precinct. I think they're all okay, but it's probably best to get them out of here. So, unless there's a reason I need to stay here…"

"No, go ahead," Fenton told him. Then he sank back into his gloomy thoughts. It was going to be a long night with more long days to come.

HBHBHBHBHB

It was two weeks later, early in the morning. Fenton felt like he could whistle as he was entering the precinct at the beginning of his shift, carrying an envelope with him. He felt lighter than he had in the last weeks. Perhaps that was partly because he was, for once, well-rested and well-fed and had woken up to Laura and the boys in the apartment on a bright, sunny morning. Perhaps it was also because of the decision that he and Laura had made. Even though it had been a hard decision, it was good to have it made. Now all there was left to do was the final steps toward embarking on the new adventure that it would entail.

Mitch Johnson met him at the door of his office. "I've got good news for you," he called as soon as he saw Fenton.

"It's a good day for it," Fenton replied. "What is it?"

"Casey finally broke down and confessed everything," Mitch said. "Naturally, he'd do it while we were both off-duty, but I've got the full transcript right here. He knows a lot more than I expected."

"Great." Fenton pushed his door open and both men entered. "Maybe we can lay Black Rose to rest now."

"No luck there," Mitch admitted. "He doesn't know anything about them, or so he says. I'm inclined to believe it, though."

"Yes, your theory that Black Rose adherents have orders not to allow themselves to be taken alive." Fenton frowned. "Well, even if we can't get rid of them altogether, hopefully, we've at least made things hot enough for them that they won't be rearing their heads again."

"Hopefully. At the very least, we now have enough to keep Casey locked up for a very long time, as well as somebody else that we've hoping to nail. One guess."

"Alessandro Moretti?" Fenton asked hopefully.

"Bingo." Mitch laid the confession transcript on the desk. "Evidently, Casey was selling both Alessandro and Gregorio information, and because of that, he's got some great dirt on Alessandro. He's going to get sent up, and not just for income tax evasion, either. Casey has definite evidence of him hiring an assassin to put one of his rivals out of business."

"Excellent. I suppose Casey want leniency in exchange for this information."

"He got an FBI agent killed and was a dirty cop, so I don't think they're going to go too easy on him," Mitch replied.

"That's true." Fenton picked up the transcript and began to read. "I don't suppose he knows what that shooting that started this whole thing was about, does he?"

"No, but it's not hard to guess."

Fenton nodded. "Gregorio trying to muscle in on his dad's territory, no doubt. What about the Berettas?"

Mitch's face clouded. "Yeah, he knows all about that, because he had a direct hand in getting them killed."

Fenton also frowned. "So they're definitely dead?"

"Yeah. Nico apparently was wanting to get out of the business he was in. It's a risky game to get out of, though, and he tried going to the police anonymously. Casey got hold of it, figured out who it was, and told Gregorio, and the rest is history."

"Has Giovanni been notified?" Fenton asked. Naturally, Giovanni Beretta had been informed of Gregorio's dying words concerning his brother and sister-in-law, but there had been a faint hope that they had been interpreted.

"John," Mitch corrected him. "Ever since he left New York for the seminary, that's the name he's been using. Says he wants to put the past behind him as much as possible. And yes, they've already told him. Apparently, he took it pretty well. It wasn't a big surprise, I guess. He's formally dropping out of the seminary and will raise the kids himself. Good luck to him. It's got to be quite a shock to all the sudden have your life completely changed and three kids on your hands, especially when that Angelo is one of them. Mario and Isabella seem like nice kids, but I'm guessing he's going to have some trouble with Angelo."

"Hopefully not too much," Fenton replied. "They've all been through enough as it is. By the way, any word on Evangeline?" When Gregorio's daughter had finally calmed down in the hospital, she had told the doctors that her name was Evangeline Moretti, that her mother had died, and that she didn't have any other family that she knew of, besides her grandfather.

"Nothing new," Mitch said. He shook his head. "It's too bad. It's really looking like she's going to be permanently blind."

"And I guess Casey's confession is going to put an end to Alessandro trying get his hands on her," Fenton said. "That's a good thing, though. Even foster care has got to be better than being raised by him."

"Yeah, but it's rough. Apparently, she's pretty stuck on the idea that everyone at the scene of that crash is to blame, even Mario just because he was there. I'm afraid she might have more issues than just being blind."

"Poor kid. Hopefully she can get some help."

"So, that's not what I think it is, is it?" Mitch nodded toward the envelope that Fenton had laid on his desk as he looked over the transcript.

"Afraid so," Fenton replied. "It's my resignation that I'm going to hand over to the captain. I'm giving a whole month's notice though."

"No chance of changing your mind?"

"No. You know Laura and I have been thinking about this for a while, moving to a small town. It's just now we've got a plan that might be feasible."

"It still seems kind of sudden," Mitch said. "You're sure it's not this case making up your mind for you?"

"This case did kind of make up my mind," Fenton admitted, "but it's really not an impulse decision. It's been a long time in the making." He noticed Mitch's somber expression. "Hey, cheer up. It's not like we're moving to the other side of the world. I expect you to come up to Bayport for a visit every now and then."

"We'll have to see about that," Mitch replied with a small teasing twinkle in his eye. "After all, I'm going to have to do enough work for both of us from now on. Not that I didn't have to before."

Fenton picked up a paperclip from his desk and threw it at him. "You know I'm still your superior for the next month. I could still have you demoted."

"Fat chance. I'm probably going to wind up with a promotion out of this, finally getting you out of the NYPD's hair."

Fenton snorted. "As if. If the captain gets it in his head that you're the reason I'm resigning, he'll fire you to try to keep me."

"In your dreams." Mitch chuckled. "I'd better go. Some of us have work to do."

Fenton chuckled as Mitch left the room. He was going to miss him and the other officers he worked with. For that matter, there was a lot he was going to miss about New York, after all, but at the same time, he could hardly wait for the adventures that awaited him.


	11. Epilogue: Beginning of a New Era

J.M.J.

_Author's note: Thank you to max2013, Candylou, ErinJordan, and Bkworm4life4 for your reviews on chapter 10!_

**Epilogue**

**The Beginning of a New Era**

"There was no need to buy such a big house, and with this whole private detective thing you're starting on that's risky financially as well as every other possible way, I don't think it was very advisable." Gertrude clicked her tongue as she looked up at the house on the corner of High and Elm in Bayport, the same one that Laura had fallen in love with nearly two months earlier.

"We've been saving for a house long enough that we were able to put a nice, big payment down on it already," Fenton assured her, handing her a box of household items from the back of the U-Haul truck. "Trust me, Gertrude, buying the house was the least risky part of this whole endeavor."

"You can say that again," Gertrude replied. "You ran into enough danger as a police officer, now you want to face twice as much every day."

Fenton looked around at the quiet, peaceful street. It was the middle of the afternoon, and there weren't even any cars driving past. "I think being a private detective here in Bayport is less dangerous than even being a regular citizen in New York. This place looks pretty sleepy."

Gertrude sniffed. "Looks can be deceiving. Besides, you'll probably have people from all over the world calling you for help."

Fenton chuckled. "I hope so, but I doubt that will ever happen."

"With your skills as a detective and the reputation you already have? People would have to be downright stupid not to want you working on their cases."

Fenton shook his head. Some days, it was hard to say whether Gertrude was more upset that he wasn't entirely retiring from law enforcement or that he would possibly fade into obscurity from it.

Laura parked the Hardy sedan next to the U-Haul in the driveway. She had driven behind Fenton while he and Gertrude, who had offered to help the family move into their new home, rode in the truck and had somehow gotten a little ways behind them. She went around to the back seat to unbuckle Joe from his booster seat.

"Why don't we take a look around inside before we start carrying everything in?" she suggested. "The realtor isn't even here with the key yet."

"Why didn't you tell me that, Fenton?" Gertrude asked in annoyance as she slid the box back onto the back of the truck.

"Guess it slipped my mind," Fenton admitted sheepishly as he jumped down from the truck and went to help Frank out of the car.

The first thing both Frank and Joe wanted to do upon being released was run around the large front lawn of the house, but Laura held them back.

"We'd better make sure there's nothing dangerous in the yard before we let them play out here," she explained to Fenton.

"Right." Fenton glanced at his watch. "I hope the realtor gets here soon. It's not much of a homecoming to just be stuck standing outside."

It was only a minute or two later that another car pulled into the driveway. Fenton and Laura recognized the driver as Chester Morton, the realtor who had handled the purchase of their house. He was also accompanied by a woman and two young children, a boy and a girl, who were about Frank and Joe's ages.

"Hello, everybody," he greeted them with a jovial smile. "Sorry we're a little later. This is my wife, Molly. She insisted on bringing a seven-course dinner for all of you."

Molly Morton laughed. "Don't listen to him. It's just a roast and some cookies and some fresh vegetables from the garden. Making new neighbors cook dinner their first night here is no way to welcome folks to town."

"Fenton Hardy." Fenton held out his hand to shake hers. "This is my wife, Laura, and my sister, Gertrude. She's helping us move in. I didn't realize you lived in this neighborhood."

"Oh, no," Chester said. "We live out on a farm a couple miles out of town. More of a hobby than anything, really. By the way, these are our kids, Chester Jr. and Iola. We thought they'd like to meet your boys."

So far, the children had done little more than stare at one another, but little by little, Joe was edging toward the new arrivals.

"Well, let's get this food in the house where it's a little cooler and then start getting you unpacked," Molly said.

"Oh, there's no need…" Laura began to protest, but Chester and Molly didn't take no for an answer.

They set in with a will, carrying things into the house and into whatever room they were directed. While the adults were working, Joe retrieved his toy T-Rex from the box where it had been put and showed it to Chester Jr. and Iola. Chester Jr., who pronounced his name "Chetter Juner", was very interested in that.

"I got a dinosaur," he announced before he ran to his mother and tugged at her knee. "I want my dinosaur!"

Fortunately, he had brought it along and it was in the car, so it only took Molly a few minutes to retrieve it for him. It was a stegosaurus, but Chester Jr. didn't seem to realize that that meant that it wasn't a meat-eating dinosaur. He walked it across the floor of the mostly empty living room, making roaring and growling noises as he did.

Joe laughed in wicked delight as he brought his T-Rex in for an epic battle and the two dinosaurs clashed against one another. Frank didn't want to be left out of the fun, so he went to grab a couple of his toys – an airplane and a bear, to be exact – and joined in with no care for historical discrepancies.

Iola, who was younger than any of the boys and was just barely walking, watched in wide-eyed fascination. At one point, when Frank left his bear unattended, she grabbed it and threw it across the room, squealing in delight as if she had just scored the winning points in a football game.

"Hey!" Frank shouted in dismay as he went to retrieve the bear.

In the end, though, they must have all made friends, because they all eventually fell asleep in something like a heap on the floor.

In the middle of carrying everything in, Tom and Sam Radley and Captain Ezra Collig, who was in street clothes, as well as Sam's fiancée, Ethel, arrived and offered to help.

"We heard through the grapevine that you were moving in today," Tom explained. "We figured we might as well be good neighbors and lend a hand."

"I'm afraid being good neighbors isn't their only motive," Ethel admitted in an undertone to Laura and Molly. "They're pretty ridiculously excited about a famous detective like Fenton Hardy moving to little, ol' Bayport."

"I don't like putting you all to so much trouble," Laura replied.

"Don't worry about it," Ethel assured her. "We all want to help. We wouldn't be here otherwise."

Scarcely an hour had passed since the Hardys' arrival in Bayport before everything was in the house and most of the furniture was even approximately in place. After that, the new neighbors stayed and chatted until dinnertime. The Hardys invited them to stay, and so they all sat down to Molly's roast, which she had fortunately brought in a slow cooker to keep it warm all that time. She had also brought enough roast and vegetables and cookies for three times as many people, so there was plenty to go around.

By the time all the neighbors had left, Fenton and Laura were having a hard time believing that they had really only just met them. Moreover, they were all touched by how friendly and helpful they had all been.

"You know," Laura said, as she and Fenton were standing on the porch after saying good-bye to the last of them, "I think I'm going to like it here."

"Me, too," Fenton agreed.

_Author's note: Thank you so much for reading this story in its entirety. I hope you've enjoyed reading it even half as much I enjoyed writing it. I would be really sad about wrapping it up, but now I get to go on to the next book in this series, which will be titled _School of Thought_. The first chapter will be going up next Friday, right on schedule. I know some of you have been asking for more little Frank and Joe, but I don't have any immediate plans to write more stories with them at this age, although you never know what inspiration may strike in the future. There's a fourteen-year time jump in between this story and the next one, which means Frank and Joe will be teenagers next time around and will take their rightful place as the main characters. Also, looking back at the author's note at the beginning of this story, I see that I said there would be possibly six books in this series. I've done more planning since then, and I can say now that there will be between eight and twelve, ideally. I know, this project will take several years, but I care about it probably more than any other writing project I've ever taken on, so I feel fairly confident that it will actually happen._

_Finally, I want to give a huge, special thank you to everyone who left reviews at any point in this story: Bkworm4life4, BMSH, Candylou, Cherylann Rivers, drogorath, ErinJordan, FanHB08, MargaretA66, max2013, and t4swp, as well as anyone who leaves reviews in the future. Reviews are such a huge help and encouragement in the writing process and I'm so grateful to all of you for them. I hope to be seeing you soon in _School of Thought_._

_~Lizzy_


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